Willingness to Watch the Pre-Flight Safety Briefing: A Structural Model

ABSTRACT

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to examine the factors that significantly influence a passenger’s willingness to watch the pre-flight safety briefing.

Background: The pre-flight safety briefing is a required presentation that must be administered to all passengers before conducting a flight. This briefing is most commonly delivered via a live demonstration by flight attendants or through the aircraft’s in-flight entertainment system, such as a seatback video.

Method: Using a sample of 876 participants from the United States, we examined the influence of familiarity, anticipatory flight anxiety, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and frequency of flying on willingness to watch the pre-flight safety briefing. The study used a quantitative correlational design with structural equation modeling techniques for data analysis.

Results: The results supported 5 of the 7 hypotheses. High levels of flight anxiety resulted in less willingness to watch the pre-flight safety briefing. Significant positive relationships were found between familiarity, conscientiousness, agreeableness on the willingness to watch. A strong relationship between willingness to watch and stated actual watching also was found.

Conclusions: The study’s findings provide insight into what factors influence a passenger’s willingness to watch and examine the role personality factors have on willingness. As a result of this study, insights are gained into possible ways to increase passengers’ willingness to watch the pre-flight safety briefing and their consumption of this vital safety information.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.