If we
ask any seasoned air traveller, what would he consider as the most
boring moments of his/her entire air journey? I am sure that the
answer would be the minutes, when mandatory air crew safety
demonstration is done at the beginning of each and every flight. This
demonstration, carried out at the instance of International Civil
Aviation Organization, usually is accompanied with an announcement,
which begins something like this: “Now
we request your full attention as the flight attendants demonstrate
the safety features of this aircraft.”
The demonstration typically cover such aspects as bracing position,
seat belts, emergency exits, oxygen masks, life belts etc. There is
no doubt that all this information is of vital importance during an
emergency, but a seasoned traveller normally has heard it so many
times that he tends to simply neglect it, particularly on long haul
flights with stops on way.
Cebu
Pacific airlines is a budget airline serving around the Asia-Pacific
region. In October 2010, they came out with a novel idea to promote
their airline, prior to a planned stock exchange offering on 12
October, 2010. To catch the media limelight, they decided a novel
approach for grabbing the passengers' attention for the oft-ignored
safety demonstration, when pretty, young female air crew performed
the air safety demonstrations, as part of a dance routine involving a
Lady Gaga tune and then allowed the passengers to take videos of the
dance. The air crew mixed in dance moves with instructions about how
to don life jackets, use air masks and find the emergency exits.
Obviously, Cebu Pacific's novel trick was not so much really to grab
passenger's attention towards safety demonstration but instead had in
mind it's $538 million capital raising exercise on Philippines'
stock exchange, as part of plans to buy more planes to compete with
Singapore's Tiger Airways and Malaysia's Air Asia.
The
idea clicked, as the videos of the crew dancing became You Tube
sensations with about 7 million hits. However, there was criticism
from the feminists. The women's political party Gabriela in
Philippines said that the routine was "a cheap promotional
gimmick" and branded the airline "a purveyor of sexism and
machismo". Responding to the criticism, airline came out with a
second version that featured male crews also dancing to a 1980 tune
“Men Without Hats.” This dance was quite appreciated by many
female passengers at least.
India's
budget airline 'SpiceJet' appears to have taken a leaf out of Cebu
Pacific's book last week. On March 17th
2014, when Indians celebrated the festival of colours known as
'Holi,' SpiceJet ran eight special flights with extra cabin crew on
board, to do a 2.5-minute jig to celebrate Holi. The cabin crew on
these flights performed a small dance sequence based on a song 'Balam
Pichkari' from Bollywood chartbuster 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani,'
starring Ranbir Kapoor-Deepika Padukone, at 35,000 feet up in the
air. The airline allowed the passengers to take videos with their
mobile phones. The videos were eventually uploaded on YouTube and
other social media. In one video, a pilot is seen coming out of the
cockpit and taking photographs of the celebrations at the front of
the aisle. Passengers apparently did not mind the dance as they are
seen in the video, cheering and clapping along.
While
Spicejet management and the passengers appeared pleased with the
promotion and the media attention, the airline received. India's
directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) was not amused at all.
Smarting under recent downgrade of India's flight safety ranking by
US, DGCA is in no mood to take things lightly and has promptly
issued a show cause notice to Spicejet with a threat to ground the
airline. DGCA says in it's notice using a video shot on the SG 876
Goa-Bangalore flight as evidence:
Cabin
crew acts had drawn the attention of other crew on duty, thus
reducing their preparedness/alertness. The frequent movement of the
dancing crew may have affected the aircraft's centre of gravity
during flight and created turbulence. The airline is charged with
permitting use of cellphones in the air to take pictures, which is
against present regulation. It is accused of creating an environment
that might have instigated passengers to become unruly.... It is
established that SpiceJet failed to observe various safety
regulations to provide a safe flight.
Spicejet
has tried to defend themselves by saying that the cockpit was manned
at all times as per DGCA regulations that govern situations, when one
pilot is outside, for instance to use the toilet. The dance that
lasted just 2.5 minutes, was professionally choreographed and was a
Holi delight for passengers. It had also put additional crew members
— two airhostesses and an in-flight manager — on the flights for
this jig.
Many
Indian and foreign airlines have held magic shows, birthday
celebrations and other festivities on board. Several airlines around
the world celebrate special occasions such as Xmas on their flights.
To show that Spicejet's idea was not new or untried before, I have
highlighted above, similar attempts, by Cebu Pacific. None of such
previous attempts have resulted with any untoward results. In case
of Spicejet it was simply trying to give its flyers a memorable Holi
experience, and the passengers weren't complaining. But it appears
that Spicejet may have to pay the price for its exuberance.
21st
march 2014
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