Videos Clarify the Modern Flying Experience

Recently on my blog, I discussed a series of educational videos that aim to help understand what it is like to fly by commercial airline these days. While presented here as humor, the following gives readers a "big picture" look at flying today:

Let's say you are from another planet - like maybe Mars - and your Leader sends you on a journey "far, far away" to investigate how humanoids travel around this chuck of rock called Earth. After a few light years cooped up in a tiny capsule, you touchdown just outside the terminal at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport.

You begin your research by strolling past a young couple laughing hysterically as they watch videos on a strange electronic gizmo that spans their lap. Intrigued, you draw on your new English speaking skills to start up a conversation and ask what is so funny. The couple stops ROFL long enough to tell you this:

They're watching Delta Airline's new series of "Passenger Etiquette Training Videos" called Planeguage. The videos are meant to train Earthlings on how to fly in an airliner, and explain what can be expected if you've never flown on Delta Airlines before.

The Martian sits down next to the couple and begins watching with them...and here is what they see:

Lavdance (view here) - A line of pax are waiting in the aisle, ready to piss their pants - even though the airlines discourages hovering vertically near the lav door in this post-9/11 world. A rude woman emerges from the Loo and pushes/shoves her way through the pissy customers back to her seat.

Kidtastrophe (view here) - A businessman rides in coach, and spills his coffee on a fresh white shirt because some puke eight-year-old behind him thinks the guy's seatback is a soccer ball. Two more cherubs stand on their seats in the next row forwards, staring at him for hours. And just for effect, a toddler lounges on a mother's lap in the seat next to his, screaming bloody murder for his/her $#@%!& binky.

Shady Lady (view here) - A pressurized tube full of pax are engulfed in some low rent "B" movie in a darkened cabin. Just as the flick hits its climax, a dumbass woman in the window seat starts yanking her window shade up and down several times, letting annoying daylight in to blind the flyers around her. And just when an aisle seat kid wants to look out the window, dumbass window seat lady yanks the shade closed.

Middleman (view here) - Two nice young children ride in the aisle and window seat of what appears to be a 737, with three abreast seating on each side of the aisle. A rude and crude man sits down in between them and the three proceed to jostle for the armrests. After a little give and take, the mean adult wins by forcefully shoving the kid's innocent little arms off the rests so he can use a "wide stance" to read his paper.

Miracle in the 34th Row (view here) - This cute little holiday piece opens with Christmas travelers packing away their carry-ons and packages in the overheads. A happy couple sits in three across seating, holding hands across the empty middle seat. A late-to-the-gate moron squeezes into the pressurized tube just as the door is closing, and heads towards the happy couple's row, which happens to be row 34. But the moron finds his seat in row 35, and the happy couple does not have to stop holding hands.

The Little Green Man stares at the laptop gizmo with disbelief before calmly asking "who the heck would want to travel like that...are you Earthlings insane?" He then gets back in his tiny capsule and launches for home, radioing his Leader to tell him they can scratch this rock called "Earth" off their list of planets with intelligent life.

From my vantage point as an advertising professional, these Planeguage videos are an interesting exercise in how the delicate psychology of public relations can sometimes backfire. Viewed one after the other, they show an absolutely horrible travel environment, so the Martian has a point in asking why we, the people, would actually PAY to get around like that.

It should not be rocket science to create an airline where passengers are happy and served well.