Pull the mask firmly towards you, place it over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic straps around your head and breathe normally...

I received many emails and saw many posts and stories following the recent aircraft incident in which passengers were seen to not be wearing their oxygen masks correctly.

Several suggestions were made to me by various interested individuals, so I thought I would address some of them here.

1) Change the design of the oxygen masks to match those used in the medical field.

2) During the safety demonstration, focus more on the use of the mask and less on the seat belt, as everyone knows how to use a seat belt.

3) Don’t demonstrate the life vest. It will never be needed.

4) Use humor in the safety demonstration to encourage attention.

5) Ban the use of humor in the safety demonstration, as it diminishes the safety message.

My responses:

1) Medical masks come in multiple sizes and their use on a child is often different to their use on an adult. For example, some require inversion to fit the child’s smaller face, whereas the drop out oxygen masks are designed for universal fitting. They simply have to be placed over the nose and mouth as has been heard on every safety briefing made on pressurized aircraft. It was previously suggested that the design of overhead lockers be changed to prevent them from being opened during an emergency. Changing designs to any aircraft fixture is a costly “fix” to the issue of human action/inaction and would likely create additional or different problems which have not yet been countered. 

2) While the use of the oxygen mask is universal, the fastening, tightening and release of seatbelts is not. I can easily think of four different types of seatbelt in use today which require different instructions:

• Airbag seatbelts with push button release
• Airbag seatbelts with lift buckle release
• Standard lap belts with lift buckle release
• Lap belts with additional shoulder harness 

We cannot assume that everyone knows how to use the equipment, that everyone has flown before and that everyone understands the same.

3) I beg to differ. Life vests have been needed and used successfully in the past. While the chances are thankfully slim, they are exactly what they set out to be – life preservers.

4) The use of humor within the safety demonstration is very much something to be carefully managed. There has been a lot of research into whether creative messaging in safety videos and announcements will add to the retention of the information delivered to the passenger. Where humor is concerned, it very much depends on the culture and disposition of the passengers, to make sure that mutual respect and understanding is maintained. Humor certainly has its place with some, but not others.

5) As above. Some cultures and groups are more sensitive to the use of humor, and it can be seen by some as disrespectful.

I look forward to reading the comprehensive and detailed report which will be made available once the investigation is complete. In the meantime we should not speculate on what did or did not happen. Flying safely is the industry's top priority and lessons can be learned from every accident, resulting in changes to regulations or standards where deemed appropriate. I am sure that this incident will be discussed on annual cabin crew recurrent training courses for many years to come.