Southwest Airlines Safety Instructions Rap

Written by Paul van Veenendaal on March 16th, 2009 | 17 comments

Just came back from a wonderful week in New York City! On my trip I did some sight-seeing amongst which the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, Empire State Building and the United Nations, visited Yale and Louis Lunch in New Haven and went on a quest in NY to find the typical Dutch bitterballs with Askfrasco.

Southwest Airlines: Bar Refaeli

Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant becomes Internet celebrity

Before my take-off I was given a dull pre-flight safety demonstration about the safety features of the aircraft. At South-West Airlines a flight attendant came up with a much more entertaining, surprising and engaging way of presenting the safety instructions, that requires audience participation of stomping and clapping.

Instead of reading out the regular boring announcement to passengers a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in the US decided to rap the safety instructions over the plane’s speakers. The rap finishes to a roar of applause from passengers. The comments from the people on-board: “that’s the first time I have listened to the emergency instructions”.

Before turning the pre-flight safety check into a rap, David Holmes had to write down the lyrics and make sure they were in compliance with all of the F.A.A. regulations.

“Teresa in the middle, David in the back, my name is David and I’m here to tell you that…”

Holmes was discovered by a passenger who recorded his rap with her cell phone, and then told him she was putting it on YouTube. His rap of the pre-flight safety instructions has become a viral sensation, after CNN, Yahoo! News, The Wall Street Journal, 6ABC, Central Florida News and Digg picked up the story.

The video also has spread to several video sites other than YouTube such as Break, CollegeHumor, MetaCafe, MySpace, LiveLeak, eBaum’s World and Clipser.

On the official YouTube channel of Southwest Airlines, NutsAboutSouthwest, more entertaining in-flight videos can be found, such as Leprechauns On A Plane and A Flight Attendant Country Song. Strangely enough, the rap of David is not available on the airline’s YouTube channel. It’s not known if David got inspired by the Foxy Flight Attendant Bikini Rap ;-)

Also other commercial airlines like Delta and Virgin America have spiced up their pre-flight safety demonstrations.

Southwest Airlines hit the headlines earlier this month when passengers vented their anger at being forced to fly on a Boeing 737 decorated with bikini model Bar Refaeli, lying seductively in a revealing white bikini. The plane advertising was part of a promotional deal with Sports Illustrated.

southwest_barrefaeli_closeup

Sports Illustrated cover girl Bar Refaeli

Source: News.com.au, CNN, Shallow Nation

Also checkout these airline campaigns on ViralBlog.com: Delta, Finnair, Iceland Express, KLM: Stop The Hassle, KLM Fly For Fortune, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways.

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