The Economist magazine has a great piece this week spoofing an “honest” in-flight announcement. Cut to the tape:
GOOD morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust. [$ Econ]
While the rest of the parody is funny as well as scathing, it got me thinking: would an airline that markets itself as putting consumer safety first acutally be a selling point today? Heck, we have naked air and an airline for smokers. I think it is an idea that would fly.
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September 14th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
You know, some British Airways business class seats face backward, and that airline’s not going bust.
September 15th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
The Discovery Channel show MythBusters actually showed that a rear facing seat is no safer than a coach class seat. However, a forward facing first class seat was potentially more dangerous than a coach class seat. In all three classes the “occupants” suffered broken legs which is consistant with the data on air crash fatalities. Most people don’t die in the crash, they die from the fire.