I love the chic new 2021 Air France safety video. It’s a lovely and magnifique tour of France. But the prior video was timeless. It was near-perfect. Why doesn’t anyone ever leave well enough alone?
Air France 2021 Safety Video
Here’s the new safety video, which takes us on a tour highlighting the best of French art, culture, cuisine, and architecture:
View from the Wing notes the new video is surprisingly non-COVID (there are no masks, no social distancing, and the whole video has an appealing pre-pandemic appeal) and that itself is a selling point. I would agree: it is a paean to normalcy and highly welcome in an era in which the spectre of permanent restrictions on movement are downright depressing.
Paddle Your Own Kanoo notes that tourism is critical to the French economy, with France losing between €48 billion and €61 billion during the pandemic in its tourism sector. Pre-pandemic, nearly 100 million tourists visited France each year. This video seems to be an opening salvo in welcoming visitors back.
As for me, I thought the last video was timeless. No joke, I was just watching it with my son yesterday. Instead of watching cartoons, he watches airline safety videos from around the world on YouTube. It’s a great introduction to languages from around the world and if I can push my son and daughter to do one thing, it will be to put more focus on language study than I ever did.
I like them both, but I thought the old video was so elegant and well-done. I find myself again asking, why not leave well enough alone? Air France plans to shed 20% of its workforce. It would be one thing if it had a terrible safety video that needed to be updated, but it already had a wonderful safety video.
Anyway, it always take me time to warm up to new things…
CONCLUSION
A new Air France safety video is out…and it’s great. Just not as great as the last one!
Although I liked the old one, I prefer the new one.
Air France recently changed the company in charge of its advertising and communication for Omnicom after 21 years with Havas. This might explain why they released this new safety video.
Additionally, the music that goes with the video you posted hasn’t been heard onboard Air France’s planes for a few years already because of copyrights issues. Another reason why Air France might have wanted a new video.
Loved the video. As for comments about not mentioning coronavirus, this video is for the long term and also the virus is not a flight safety issue (it is a health safety issue). They can always tell passengers to wear masks all the time but just speaking to them which BTW should be done way before a safety video is shown to all passengers.
I am not 100% sure but I think this new video has a new mention of the crew in red badges being the safety lead and perhaps more info on keeping an eye on electronics? I suppose they have to update these with more and more info each time. Perhaps it gets so long at this point they have to change them every year so people will pay attention.
I think that in an pandemic-enforced era where every single penny matters that the timing of this just feels bad. Money that should be spent elsewhere.
Indeed one of the related posts for this article is “petty air france demands cancellation fees but denies refunds”.
Maybe i’m just cynical.
I do appreciate the “older” version. It could easily be nominated in the Foreign Short Film for many categories. It is so quintessential in its depiction of all things wonderful about France chic! But the new Safety film is just as wonderful on the background scenery and updated safety points. C’est la vie!
The previous one seems more quirky French style, which I really like.
But I’m always on board for safety videos that showcase the country.
Don’t be a Lufthansa safety video.
The previous video was probably my favourite safety video ever, especially in its original debut form when they used the “France is in the air” theme. Then they changed the music to some generic score and I thought it lost some of its impact. But overall a wonderfully designed and choreographed video that really played up the whimsy and chicness of being French.
The new video is ok. What I find most jarring about is the part where the flight attendants say electronic devices should not be charged during takeoff and then proceed to rip out the charger from the port. I cringed. Imagine if that happened in real life. A surefire way to piss off your customers.
I loved the previous video.
This new one I like – sort of. I’ve only viewed it once, but my initial impression is that there’s A LOT going on in it. My eyes were tired by the time the video concluded. (So much to look at… so little time.)
I am glad they used the female flight attendant from the ‘France is in the Air’ video, as she’s very appealing.
To me, the best part of this new video is the end; the row of flight attendants atop the Eiffel Tower, and the camera pulling back just as the Tower begins sparkling.