AirAsia steward explains zany airline safety announcement

Remember the AirAsia announcement clip that went viral recently? You know the one we're talking about - the hilarious video of the in-flight safety instruction which had airline passengers hooting in laughter.

Well, Yahoo! Malaysia spoke to Quinton Dinesh Thomas, the senior flight attendant in charge of the zany announcement and this is what he had to say.

"I have boarded many flights as a passenger or when i was a junior crew and realized that during the safety demo briefing, many passenger read books, sleep or just look outside the window instead of paying attention.

"I would rather have at least 90% of passengers - better 100% of them - listen, smile, laugh, enjoy the safety briefing, than to have 50% not paying attention at all," Thomas said.

Well, his announcement certainly got the attention of the denizens of cyberspace. The video of his announcement was put up on YouTube on April 12 and has already got over 417,000 views so far.
The posting resulted in dozens of comments as well as over 2,000 'likes'.

One commenter said this was the first time in 20 years he or she paid attention to an in-flight announcement.

Another called the announcement 'amazing' and said flight announcements - especially safety ones - should be done creatively and in an engaging manner.

"I can now easily recall the safety measures. You did a good thing by posting this video. I hope Air Asia acknowledges you, especially when the media picks up on this," said the person, whose login name was 'kevinrohanthomas'.

According to 'saymawa', the person who uploaded the video, the announcement was made during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Krabi, Thailand.

He added he was aware his job is on the line because of his deviation from the standard text announcements requested from the Department of Civil Aviation but said he wanted to do something to educate and entertain passengers while ensuring they got the safety message clearly.

"I never work for the money, I work because I enjoy what I do and I love my job,"said Thomas.

We think he deserves a round of applause for getting people to listen to him. What about you?