I Finally Watched an In-Flight Safety Video All the Way to the End

By the time the cabin doors hiss shut, the buckle-and-click routine has been embedded in your brain, and you can already walk to the exit area even with your eyes closed. Ideally, that's the effect of in-flight safety videos, especially after being on loop during boarding. But who really watches these things? Not me, who just dozes off in the middle of the trance-like repetition.

Philippine Airlines hopes to end this lack of interest (especially among frequent flyers) with a new safety video that debuted on their first A350-1000 and, soon, across all aircraft. I watched it all the way to the end, and I'm not even on a flight. A copy was released online on December 31, 2025, at 12 p.m., and it got almost a hundred thousand views on Facebook, even while people were already busy preparing for Media Noche that afternoon.

Titled "Care That Comes From The Heart," the six-minute video draws on the style of Filipino telenovelas, including the hacienda setting, an arranged marriage common among the affluent, and the poor guy/rich girl trope. It's a classic love story between two people separated by class, which we've seen in local shows like Pangako Sa 'Yo, Mula Sa Puso, and many more. In between declarations of love are reminders about putting the carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment, setting devices to airplane mode, switching off gadgets, and the usual—all with a teleserye twist, of course.

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"Mag-vape na lang ako," says Diego (played by Jay Gonzaga), after his father, Don Juan (played by Robert Seña), gives him a cigar. To this, the PAL flight attendant reminds them that "smoking and vaping in the aircraft are strictly prohibited.

Later on, Doña Victorina (played by Maritess Joaquin) says, "Pakilagay nga itong power bank sa kompartamento." But the FA reminds viewers that "Power banks and spare batteries are prohibited inside the overhead stowage bins."

And in true teleserye fashion, farm boy Anton (played by Khalid Abdullah) bursts into the church where Diego and Luisa (played by Kelley Day) are getting married with an "Itigil ang kasal" moment. With tension felt among the bride's and groom's families, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. Sequences like this are peppered all over the clip; they're ridiculously funny, almost absurd, but they did catch our attention. That lifevest showdown in front of Daraga Church is just hard to miss.

The country's flag carrier also included wide shots of popular Philippine destinations, Boracay, Bacolod, Cebu, Albay, Palawan, and Pangasinan. Something you'd normally expect not only from airlines, but also from tourism agencies that are mandated to increase (if not maintain) the country's tourist arrivals.

PAL's safety video is co-presented by Mastercard and made in collaboration with BBDO Guerrero, as confirmed by the airline. It is produced by Arcade Film Factory, with director Marius Talumpas, director of photography Dix Buhay, and production designer Juan Manuel Alcazaren, as confirmed by the advertising agency.

This isn't the first time that an airline employed gimmickry in an in-flight safety video.

According to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (presented at the 2025 TTRA International Conference), "passengers often find these videos repetitive and unengaging, which makes it challenging for airlines to capture their attention." In an effort to do so, they've adopted more creative approaches, particularly mixing it with destination marketing, such as a 2022 Air New Zealand safety video that highlights the country's Maori culture and natural landscapes in a narrative, and a 2017 Singapore Airlines safety video that incorporates their iconic attractions.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, in 2015, used art and animation. The film was made with over one thousand hand-painted Delft Blue tiles that were photographed and produced using the stop-motion technique.

STARLUX Airlines has a highly animated safety video they call "Starwonderers." It's like a sci-fi film, extraterrestrial creatures with three eyes or eight hands included.

Corendon Dutch Airlines, in 2023, unveiled a very niche safety video. It's in Dutch, but there's an English translation. Supposedly, the video features Dutch celebrities and well-known stand-up comedians.

As if throwing shade to all these videos, Emirates in 2024 released a "no-nonsense safety video." They prefaced that there will be "no dancers breaking into songs, actors from movies, or celebrities trying to be funny." Safety protocols were presented in a, well, no-nonsense checklist.

A 2015 research published in Safety Science indicated that up to 37 percent of participants surveyed said that they skipped watching the pre-flight safety briefing video on their last commercial flight. Results also revealed that among those who managed to watch the clip, maintaining their attention was best achieved by employing humor.

"Participants watching the humorous pre-flight safety briefing video looked away on average only once throughout the entire video," it said.

In addition, "the results also revealed that including humor in the pre-flight safety briefing video facilitated recall of key safety messages contained in the video. In contrast to the two videos, which were largely void of humor, participants who watched the humorous video could recall in excess of ten percent more. This result reflects favorably on pre-flight safety briefing videos that incorporate humor in their script."

So maybe Philippine Airlines is onto something, no matter how weird that safety video may seem.

References:

Gong, Yaqi, Liu-Lastres, Bingjie, and Pan, Bing. "Creative In-flight Safety Video: Exploring the Collaborative Marketing Outcomes of Airlines and Destinations Marketing." 2025 TTRA International Conference. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/57360

Seneviratne, Dimuth, and Brett R.C. Molesworth. “Employing humour and celebrities to manipulate passengers’ attention to pre-flight safety briefing videos in Commercial Aviation.” Safety Science, vol. 75, June 2015, pp. 130–135, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2015.01.006.

Erratum (January 3, 4:20 p.m.):

The eighth paragraph of this article has been edited to correct the names of the director, DOP, and production designer, as well as the production house. Our apologies for the oversight.

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