“Good morning. I'd like to thank you for choosing to fly with Ascheapaschips
Air, the new sub-budget Australian airline. Please pay attention to the safety
announcement. Unlike certain national carriers we don’t spend money recruiting ‘resting’
actors and celebrities to make amusing parodies, just to win kudos on YouTube.
In fact, we care as little for your safety as we do your dignity, but the Civil
Aviation Authority makes us do this, so listen up and let’s get it over with.
Your captain today is Mr Bobo, who is with us as part of
an exchange program with the Primate Department at Taronga Zoo, to which we
provide uneaten airline meals for the monkeys to fling at the tourists. Apparently,
intelligent apes are unable to distinguish between this and their usual readily
available projectile matter, but airline food has been deemed safer for both
the flinger and the flingee, as long as the monkeys don't eat it.
Mr Bobo has undergone a full day of intensive training in
the flight simulator, where he graduated dux of his class, largely because he
chewed off fewer knobs than his peers.
However, please don't be alarmed if you hear terrified
screeching from the cockpit. Mr Bobo's pretty cool with flying, but the Flight
Engineer is only human.
You will have noted, on being herded aboard, that we have
embraced new technology to eradicate the need to print boarding passes and merely
swiped your credit card instead. Luckily, your credit card is included in your
free cabin baggage allowance, along with a small tissue with which you may care
to mop your brow in the event of an in-flight emergency. Should this fairly
unlikely event occur, you can access the lifejacket stowed under your seat.
Your credit card will automatically be debited with a sum that will be
determined by the rate of descent of the aircraft and the likelihood that Ascheapaschips
Air will be required to pay damages once the wreckage has been recovered.
Cabin crew will now indicate the location of the
emergency exits, fitted with token- operated turnstiles to facilitate the
smooth exit of those passengers who opted for the Survivor Fare upgrade.
Should the plane ditch in the sea, we advise you to wave frantically
to any passing plane as soon as you have placed the lifejacket over your head,
as the cardboard from which it's constructed isn't suitable for immersion in
water. The lifejacket is also equipped with a whistle, as a nice little tune
may help distract you from your imminent demise.
Planes in the Ascheapaschips fleet are subjected to rigorous
pre-flight testing on the first Thursday of most months, as long as our
maintenance facility in Bangladesh isn't under water at the time. Kind of
ironic really, given the contribution we're making to global warming.
Thank you for flying Ascheapaschips Air. We hope that you
enjoy your flight today, and, in the absence of a long hard look at your
standards, book your next journey with us.”
