Why don't commercial passenger safety videos ever explain policy instead of merely dictating it?

Question

British Airways announced and published their new in-flight passenger safety video:

I'd like to draw your attention to two pieces of instruction given in the video, but also stated in every passenger safety video I've ever seen on every airline I've flown:

• Never inflate the life-vest inside the aircraft.
• Always put on your own air-supply mask before assisting others.

These instructions are always given in a dogmatic or dictatorial, way - the airlines expect passengers to comply with these instructions despite never giving any the reason for these policies - and I'm concerned certain passengers would disregard the instructions because they think they know better (and I included myself in that category until I found out why these policies exist).

I understand the reasons, respectively, are:

• While being inflated makes it harder to move around the plane when your torso just doubled in volume - more crucially: if the plane does take-on water it means you'll be trapped inside the plane because you won't be able to submerge yourself to access an underwater door or exit.
• Useful consciousness at altitude is measured in seconds, not minutes, and you will likely be unconscious and suffering hypoxia if you get distracted - it will take you a good 10-15 seconds to put your own mask on, let alone someone else's. It's entirely possible you'll die or suffer serious brain damage in your selfless attempt to assist your child.

Before I was aware of these facts I simply assumed the reasons were more mundane: inflating your life-jacket would simply make things slightly harder for yourself, and you should don your own mask first simply because it's easier - and I thought that inflating my own jacket inside the plane would actually save me time, and that I believed I was perfectly capable of assisting family members with their masks before my own if I held my breath. While laughable when informed, I genuinely believed these facts about myself until fairly recently. It would not surprise me if many passengers today feel the same way about themselves.

I understand the the real reasons for the policies make for grim reading and putting those kinds of visceral descriptions in the videos would spook passengers - but I assumed that because the videos never give any dire warnings, and are always said with a cheerful tone of voice, that the instructions weren't all that important, so it would somehow be tolerable if I did my own thing and disregarded the rules because I thought I was acting in my own best interest.

So why don't they at least add some transparency and explanation, for example they could say:

• Never inflate your life-jacket inside the aircraft so you can fit through smaller openings and to avoid being trapped if the aircraft takes on water.
• Always put on your own air-supply mask first before assisting others because seconds matter in low-oxygen situations.

While the sample explanations I gave don't go into too much detail, they still make it clear to passengers that the consequences of noncompliance are serious, if not fatal - and could still be read with a cheery tone of vocie :)

I compare this to the problem with "Danger: Confined Space" warning signs: the layperson thinks a confined space is dangerous because they might casually bang their head on a low ceiling - no thought is paid towards the common, very real risks and dangers of dangerous gasses pooling in a narrow shaft - yet it isn't too much trouble to add a short message to the sign saying "Because of trapped carbon-monoxide and other gasses", for example. It's odd because we already have other explanatory danger signs like "High voltage" (don't touch it without gloves), "Moving parts" (don't touch it, period) and "Falling objects" (so wear a hard-hat) - so why not airline safety instructions?

Answer 1

1. There is no time. You need to convey the information in as little time as possible or people (those few that watch at all) lose interest and start doing other things.
2. Reasoning tends to invite arguments, there's always someone who thinks he knows better. You don't want that.
3. Simplicity. Make things as easy to understand as possible using simple words. That way less intelligent people and people who have trouble with your language are more likely to understand what's expected of them.

There might be other reasons, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Answer 2

It's true, this is a UX question.

DROP THE WEAPON! The power of clear, directive communication is to get you to act fast.

Whereas if you try to explain the thing, people's minds start to turn, and for lack of anything better to do, they start to argue. And it turns into this.

The other thing is that for anyone who is cognitive-impaired, or language-impaired, or just in a high-workload environment... when you add words, you add confusion. Hence brevity codes.

Answer 3

In a word: fear

"Increased perception of risk" would be a longer way to say the same.

Consider that the more you expand on risks and dangers, the more dangerous and risky the activity seems.

As a parallel example - people who want to ride a bicycle after an absence express an increased fear after they're told to wear a helmet, and wear a high-vis vest, and carry lights at night, and wear gloves, etc.

Spending a heap of time explaining about uncommon scenarios will increase the perception, and hence the perceived risk.

Final example from a meme: "With the amount of stop drop and roll training we did I thought I would be on fire a lot more as an adult." Increased perception again.

Answer 4

Because they don't have to.

Air carriers are not required to explain why, so they may choose not to. They are required to instruct, and there is a long list of instructions that are required. Air carriers follow what is required of them, at a minimum.

As a crewmember tasked with briefing our air carrier's passengers, I have a long list of items that I have to cover. I cover the items that I have to cover, and do so as succinctly as I can. I may choose not to do too much explaining or go into too much detail on why they may need to know about the location of exits, survival gear, and fire extinguishers. Passengers could become anxious if you explain the consequences of not wearing a seat belt, not promptly initiating use of the O2 mask, etc. They are already staring at you wondering why you are saying all this and are probably wondering how much longer till they can return to reading the newspaper. Explaining time of useful consciousness could be disconcerting. I would rather tell them simply to put on the mask; after all, I will take care of getting them safely down to a reasonable pressure altitude anyway.

Now, if I was taking a close friend flying, I might go into more detail about what we are doing and why. But for the traveling public, I choose not to.

Answer 5

Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.

Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

Yes, I just quoted Men in Black as an authoritative source, but never mind that. The logic is surprisingly sound.

The airlines don't care if you remember not to inflate your life vest before leaving the cabin when everything is just fine. They care that you remember these things during a panicky situation where life vest inflation is a real concern. When this happens, your mind doesn't work. If you were dependent on your mind working, you are probably dead.

We have a lot of experience with how people react in these situations. It turns out its more effective to command people to do things rather than explain to them why they should do it. If they memorize the reason, they may try to think their way through the event to see whether the reason qualifies right now. Without a working mind, that's a big issue. In emergency situations, it's more important to do than think.

Now some people can overcome this. You may be someone who can respond better by knowing why oxygen is flowing to the mask, even though the bag may not inflate. But they have found that, in an emergency, the people they need to cater to are better supported by giving orders, not giving reasons.

And, if you're someone like me, you may choose to look up why the bag may not inflate. That's your prerogative. Their job is to ensure safety.

And if you're curious:

The "dixie cup" masks have a constant flow rate of oxygen into them. This is much cheaper than other forms of masks, but human breathing is not constant. The bag acts as a buffer. It also ensures that you rebreathe the air. If you start hyperventilating, which would waste oxygen, the bag will inflate more, capturing more of your wasted oxygen for the next breath. If you breath smoothly, you may not see the bag move at all. (Good luck breathing smoothly!)

Answer 6

Ryanair explicitly says "in the unlikely event of landing on water [...] do not inflate your jacket before leaving the plane, as doing so will impede your exit."

Since you refer to BA, I think it is only a matter of BA's choices.

Answer 7

The US regulation requiring airline cabin safety briefings is here:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/121.571

...and ends with "(c) The certificate holder shall describe in its manual the procedure to be followed in the briefing required by paragraph (a) of this section." So, the requirement to brief passengers on specific items is a legal requirement, but the FAA allows each carrier to create its own procedures for doing so. The procedures in the "manual" referred to also require FAA approval, so individual airline staff aren't given a ton of latitude on what to put into or leave out of a safety briefing. There may also be time constraints involved, depending on how long the cabin crew has to get the briefing done, complete cabin checks (seatbelt compliance, carry-ons secured, etc) and then get sat down and belted in themselves before takeoff (all regulatory requirements.)

If you look around during the average cabin briefing, you'll note that at least half the passengers are already not paying attention, so making it longer and more detailed may not actually help much - and there are enough fearful flyers among the customers that enumerating the exact consequences of failing to comply with crew instructions isn't necessarily going to calm the masses. Most flight attendants would be happy to answer any specific safety questions when they have time during the flight, so if you're wondering "why" things are briefed the way they are, the additional information should be available.

Loss of cabin pressure is unlikely to have any permanent effect as the pilots have their own quick-donning emergency oxygen masks and after putting those on will respond by initiating a VERY enthusiastic descent to 10,000 feet as soon as possible. Time of useful passenger consciousness at typical cruise altitudes (mid to high 30s) is less than a minute without supplemental oxygen, but it's 30 minutes or so at 18,000 feet - and the aircraft will be there in something like one to two minutes on the way down to 10,000 where most people would be fine without masks.

To the extent practical, the cabin crew will also provide additional reinforcement of the instructions if an emergency actually occurs (e.g., "Do NOT inflate your vest until you're out of the aircraft!"), so there will be more than the initial briefing if things get ugly.

Answer 8

There are some further answers not mentioned yet.

• They do not know the reason themselves. Many, many rules have a history when someone has made a discovery and shared his knowledge about it. People have a tendency to forget or misinterpret the original reason and only stick to rules because, you know, once you follow it, you are safe. This is a problem because once a rule becomes obsolete for the reason that it was errornous or does not apply anymore, people stick to the original rules.
  In victorian times the man should go before the woman upstairs so he cannot see her legs. Later the rule was changed because women were wearing boots with heels, long skirts and sport was unwomanly, so they could easily feint or trip and the man is at least able to catch her. Now in modern times the rule is actually obsolete, but still followed.
  So good luck trying to find someone in the airline who actually knows that people were drowing with their life jackets or that people lose their mind and rapidly pass out without oxygen.

• People are different. You see that already in school. The more right-leaning pupils are believing that rules must be obeyed and challenging them is rude. The more left leaning pupils are suspecting that the rules are there to impede their freedom and are prone to do exactly the opposite. Other pupils are not taking attention, take no interest in their surroundings and don't listen. (This applies equally to adults. My ex-girlfriend was driving the urban railway to home when a tornado was hitting southern Hamburg, the railway stopped and passed 30 m apart from her over the bridge and knocked over the river trees. As incredible as it sounds, she insisted that nobody else seems to even notice it).
  So as many people here already mentioned it, it may make sense to address the instructions in a form that most people are aware of it (and CYA for the airline...You did not listen to the instructions?).

• Less attack surface. "Put on your mask immediately when it falls down". (Passenger did not do it and dies). "The person did not comply with our instructions and we are therefore not responsible".
  "Please put on your oxygen mask because it will take only 15 seconds to lose consciousness". Shyster: "My client has witnesses who can certify that he carefully used a stopwatch to put on the mask after 12 seconds, but he lost consciousness before the time. So the airline is responsible because my client trusted them with his life for the correctness of the claim". Blah. Blah. Blah.

• People are prejudiced, biased or even plain dumb and tend to misinterpret explanations. Every author of a controversial topic could tell you long tales of what people assumedly found in their books which they have never written, even the contrary. Heck, if you follow discussions here, you are often surprised what people interpret in your comments (Hm..what???).
  When Feyman was working on the atomic bomb, he made an interesting observation about the safes: Once they are open, due to a design flaw you could easily take the first and second combination component inconspicously in seconds. He demonstrated it before a colonel who was flabbergasted, explained it to him in detail and said: "Please instruct people that they do not leave their safes and cabinets open". What did the colonel? He instructed:"Everyone who was in contact with Feynman should change their combination".

Answer 9

You'll hate this, but IMHO you misunderstand the purpose of the briefing/video.

It's primarily safety theatre to ensure that the "self-loading freight" (sorry, "valued passengers") feel that they are embarking on a slightly hazardous enterprise but are in good hands due to the skills of the airline staff.

In fact, the chances of anyone being in a life-threatening incident on a civil airliner are vanishingly small. Even for airline employees, the vast majority will go through their entire career without such an incident. When incidents do occur, they are often either non-threatening or a total loss (no amount of seat-belts, oxygen masks or locked away tray tables will save you when the plane slams into a mountain at 600mph).

Commercial flights on small aircraft are a lot more hazardous than jets, but omit the safety video and often any kind of briefing beyond the pilot looking over her shoulder and checking y'all strapped in, eh?

Flying would still be safer than driving if they had no cabin crew, took all the seats out and had the passengers hang on to grab rails, just like the airport bus (which is way more likely to come to a sudden stop than an airliner).