The Man writes just got back this evening from another trip to Washington. Luckily I had a window seat for a night flight over Manhattan. Fascinating.
Internal flights are fairly relaxed here. On my last flight out the Captain's greeting was as follows:
"Good afternoon, this is the Captain speaking, and I want you to know that I love you all and that this is my first flight...
...of the day"
and:
"I was fired by my last airline 24 years ago for having a personality.
Tell the person next to you how much you love them, even if you've never met them before. The world is so much better that way."
He received a fairly muted round of applause, but gets full marks for effort. (In case you're wondering - No, I didn't, but I was in a row of 3 on my own.)
Casting my mind back, I can't think of any other times when humour has been used during plane announcements, although I did witness a proposal of marriage once. A colleague swears he was on a flight when during the Captain's pre-landing announcement someone in the background was heard to say that they were out of fuel! The Captain came on again later to explain that it wasn't critical.
I expect some of our readers have some interesting airplane stories...
I once heard "In the case of a sudden loss of cabin pressure oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling. Please fit your own mask before helping others. Passengers travelling with two or more children should decide now which one they love the most."
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, that was very brilliant! I was once on a flight from Paris to Tokyo completely filled with Japanese school children - I was the only Westerner on the plane and probably the only one who noticed that the cabin crew were introduced as Minnie Mouse, Barbara Cartland and Lilly Savage
ReplyDeleteover heard by my mother on a flight back from New York in the mid 80s:
ReplyDeletestewardess (tearfully): 'I really think we ought to tell the other passengers about him'
steward: 'no way, they'll only start panicking'
She is still none the wiser!
Great stories! Thanks for posting them.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, can you give us a hint who you are?
Guess the mystery identity:
ReplyDeleteThe anonymous poster is a former colleague of The Man, who keeps an eye on the blogs to check up on how his old friends from the UK are doing in Albania. The bad-taste humour and cynicism of my original post should be enough for The Man to make an instant identification...
Thanks for the broad hint, anonymous. Glad to hear from you and pleased that you're looking in. Hope all goes well.
ReplyDeleteYou may have noticed that some of our other shy comment-makers are using an anagram making site...