Giving an Inflight Safety Demonstration

“any volunteers?” … why did i raise my hand? O_o

it looks so easy when flight attendants do it, but when you’re on the spot and having to go through the safety demo that we’ve all seen so many times (ad nauseam, you might think), it’s a completely different story. today during the Inflight/Catering Tour of the Star MegaDO (which was my second choice out of the three tour options we had, but it was so much fun i’m totally glad i got it), not only did we have to set up a beverage cart in less than four minutes (easy-peasy, we tied for first place with over a minute to spare!) and plate an appetizer in less than two minutes, but we got to work their 747 cabin training simulator.

they had flight attendants there doing a safety demo, and not knowing what was coming next, asked for volunteers.

when our section’s leader led me up and said “here’s your equipment!” i wanted to sit right back down — i realized what i was to do and i knew it wasn’t going to be cute!

and it wasn’t.

Of course, it’s fabulous when a trained professional does it.

but me? anything but.

It all starts out well…

…but then WTF the flat end isn’t falling out of the buckle! (I think I tightened too much; I also learned afterwards you are not supposed to do the “falling out/gravity” method of demonstrating unbuckling). I’m looking around because the person giving the spiel was really hard to hear.

The mask part went ok.

But I could only imagine how germy it was LOL (I held it away from my mouth like they do.)

*tug at straps*

The worst part, though, was the life jacket. :

I couldn’t figure out how to put it on and started busting a gut (even more so than before) trying to figure out the straps.

Finally I got some much-required assistance (I wasn’t sure if I put it on inside-out and then got flustered trying to figure out where my straps were — don’t even ask.)

And then I couldn’t find the tubes to blow into — they’re hidden between the top and bottom layers of the jacket.

needless to say, despite having watched the demonstration innumerable times and thinking i knew the routine backwards and forwards, it’s actually quite hard with the props! so props to flight attendants, and to Lauren for being such a fun person to “train” with!

So much fun, mostly thanks to Lauren who didn’t help me out but sat there snapping away laughing along with me and everyone else in our little section of the “plane” 🙂

p.s. i also learned that when indicating emergency exits, you must use two arms — don’t just raise one. (via Lauren correcting someone else — i used the two hand/two finger method, natch.)