This week’s Economist had a great short piece (sorry, subscription only online) where they quoted a fictitious, but factual, in-flight service announcement, from “Veritas Airways.” The idea was that those largely-ignored, repetitive, pre-take-off announcements–that we’ve all memorized like something from catechism class–were less than truthful. I happened to be reading it just as the flight attendant was demonstrating that ever-so useful ‘proper method’ for buckling my seat belt.
There were some gems. For example: “Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero.”
Luckily, we had not yet reached cruising altitude and the drink cart had not yet come around with the beverage service, or else I would have snorted the contents of my plastic cup of cola through my nose while reading the article. Fortunately, my squirming with laughter was probably enough to ward off deep-vein thrombosis–at least on that flight.