Note: With two notable exceptions below, I always ask one of the flight crew if I can take an airline safety card.
Would you really want to take an airline safety card as a souvenir? They’re typically cooped up in one of those seat-back pockets, one of the nastiest places on the plane. Not to mention, they have those please do not remove from the aircraft labels…well, that’s why you ask first.
But I enjoy the various languages written on them, the amusing graphics, and from time to time, review them to see the bizarre and unique airlines and aircraft types I’ve tried out.
On the other hand, I also wax nostalgic for carriers/planes no longer commercially flying, and countries no longer accessible.
Covering a topic that dates back to around 1930, when Imperial Airways, the predecessor to BOAC and British Airways, started issuing them, here are a few outliers from my collection:
As stated above, this is one of those two that I didn’t ask to take…likely because I was an irritant way back then.
But, why does this one deserve recognition? One, it’s the oldest airline safety card in my pile (that’s where the date “5/94” comes into play). Two, Continental doesn’t exist anymore. And three, DC-10s no longer offer scheduled passenger flights.
I took one flight with the bygone Adam Air, between Bali DPS and Jakarta CGK. The Merpati (another defunct Indonesian carrier) staff at DPS helped me buy this ticket, due to some overeager flooding causing capacity issues at Jakarta airport that weekend.
It’s also one of the few flights from 2008 and earlier that I vividly remember. Inside the plane, there was duct tape liberally used to hold various parts/doors together. Pieces of my seat were missing, and the plane rattled from take-off to touchdown. Might as well thrown in a couple more photos of Adam Air, because it seemed that they were doomed from day one.
In fact, just a month after my trip, due to a variety of sordid affairs, they ceased operations.
Taken from two American Airlines “Super 80s,” or DC-9-80s’. The logo may have changed, but the stale and unwelcoming interior remains constant.
Would be even weirder if these two cards are from the same plane, just years apart.
Way to go, Air Asia. Your retrofitting of this safety card really instills confidence in me….
Oh. That’ll do.
This CRJ1000 card from Garuda Indonesia is the newest (in terms of aircraft age) in my collection.
Though, hah, I have some pretty bad luck flying from Bali, as this particular flight had to return to Bali airport to refuel. In other words, the routing was Bali-Bali.
The pièce de résistance- an airline safety card from a Tupolev 134 of North Korea’s Air Koryo. Definitely didn’t ask permission to take this one. Furthermore, it’s the only Soviet-made plane with a presence in my archives, and it’s one of two Soviet jets that I’ve flown (the other – also with Air Koryo – was an Ilyushin 62).
Is there any airline memorabilia that you collect?
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