Lufthansa.
And that’s not a bad thing.
On my San Francisco-Philadelphia flight Sunday night I noticed a new safety video that featured flight attendants (in their new uniforms) welcoming passengers onboard in several languages.
I had a déjà-vu moment. Was I on a United flight or magically on Lufthansa flight, which has offered a similar muliti-lingual greeting for several years?
Take a look at the two videos–
I am a firm believer that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and we certainly see United copying Star Alliance and joint venture partner Lufthansa here. As a global airline that flies to 108 international destinations, welcoming passengers who might not speak English represents a good business move and also a subtle cultural shift in the company–a return to focusing on hospitality? We can only hope.
But this actually isn’t the first time United Airlines has welcomed aboard passengers in several languages–I was reminded of this safety video I vividly recall from childhood flying on United:
The new safety video is a winner–a professional video and we also see a return to a more appropriate rendering of Rhapsody in Blue. The video makes me hopeful that the company is finally starting to understand that having a big route map is not enough to win and keep customers. With flights like my pitiful journey to Los Angeles on Friday, there is a lot of work to be done.
Thanks for the compilation of videos. I especially enjoyed the flashback to the old video, which really brought back memories!
I agree that the new United video is nice, and a huge improvement, although it is unfortunate to be featuring the 787 so prominently given the current grounding of that fleet. I also like the more noticeable Rhapsody in Blue.
Nice to see the new flight attendant uniforms as well. Hopefully crews will be outfitted in those soon.
I’m not as optimistic for the future, but agree that this this is a positive step.
Now if they just ditched the Jeff welcome video…
Wow. That believe or not is a MAJOR improvement after the last United safety video. It still looks like it was shot on an pmCO bird.
And yes, I for one welcome back Rhapsody in Blue rather than the Elevator music in the previous version too!!!!