Ten of the best (and worst) airline safety videos ever made

The humble airline safety video will never be up for any Oscars, and seldom will you hear people saying they really enjoyed the production values in the 4 minute clip telling them what they need to do in order to prevent certain death.

Still, some airlines manage to put some creativity into their safety clips, while others settled for the bare minimum, or worse.

Here are ten of the best and worst airline safety video clips we could find.

Air New Zealand – “bares all”

Yes – nudity goes a long way at getting the attention you desire. Sadly, on a plane, you can’t really get away with showing a naked flight crew, so Air New Zealand did the next best thing – they bodypainted their crew. Add some catchy music, and you have yourself one heck of a clip.Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic was one of the first airlines in the world to animate their safety video – the results are cheesy, yet entertaining enough to get my attention.

Virgin America

Virgin America took some cues from their family member, and created another animated safety video. Once again, this is the kind of clip I’d much rather watch than some of the boring stuff on the legacy carriers.

Thompson Airways

Some airlines resort to nudity, others use the power of children to get you watching their message. This clip is so damn adorable, you have a hard time ignoring it.

Lufthansa

Dreadful music and bad hair? Yes – this is an 80’s airline safety clip. Scroll to the 1:50 mark to see terrified passengers grab their oxygen masks.

Northwest Airlines

This Northwest Airlines safety video is a prime example of what you can produce when you tell your film crew that there is no creativity allowed in the clip. You end up with a boring piece of crap like this.

Tower Air

When you take the horrible lack of creativity found in the previous clip, and combine it with a budget of no more than $100, you end up with this Tower Air clip. I’m guessing that the only people that paid attention to this clip, were hoping to die of death by boredom. In 1997, Tower Air was ranked by Zagat as 59th worst airline in the world, just ahead of Valujet and Aeroflot.

Delta Airlines

Delta Airlines shows that even the legacy carriers can create great safety videos. With a smiling face, decent beat and great acting, this clip is surprisingly good. Be sure to skip to the 1:48 mark – she really is great.

American Airlines

This early 90’s clip from American Airlines is another dreadful example of a carrier with zero creativity. Of course, this was back from when AA still called their planes Luxury Liners. Apparently AA could not find any good looking crew members, because all the content of this clip is kept in a small window – weird.

Malev Air

Malev took the animated video clip route, but still made all the passengers look as normal as possible. Which of course begs the question – why? Were they unable to find good looking actors, or does the director find working with animated passengers easier? We’ll never know. The end result is really weird, with something that looks like the kind of thing a gamer made during a session of “The Sims.”