Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the pilot speaking; I am not a captain, because I am a member of no armed force and this is not a ship. I’m in here with the co-pilot. He is not the first officer, because that is a silly term; if we had enough officers in here to be counting them, surely I’d be the first one because I’m the pilot. I’d like to point out that “in here” is the cockpit. It’s not a cabin. I advise that you avoid planes piloted from anything made out of logs. There is no “flight deck”, this is Virgin eight-three-two not the USS Enterprise.
Firstly I’d like to extend a warm welcome to members of our loyalty program. For this flight you’ll earn the minimum eight points - possibly tipping you over the ten thousand required to reach aluminium class which entitles you to wait in a different queue to check in. This queue is the same length, but has a noticable sign at the entrance alerting those around you to your status, and is bordered with attractive red rope strung between chrome bollards.
We are currently passing through 30,000 feet. I’m required to tell you this because it adds a lustre of excitement to cancel out the fact you were x-rayed and possibly groped before you were allowed on the plane; in practical terms it really just means “further than you can fall and survive, so stay inside”. If you haven’t already, it’s OK to turn on your mobile phone. Actually it was OK to have it on the whole time, the concern about mobile phones and aircraft instruments has been firmly debunked for years - assuming of course you were stupid enough in the first place to believe that Honeywell and Airbus spend tens of millions of dollars on developing flight control systems that are screwed up by a three hundred dollar Apple iPhone 3GS.
In just a few moments the stewards and stewardesses will push both a refreshments cart and their airs of self-importance down the aisle so if you need the bathroom, I’d suggest you use it now before the cart blocks access. We’re proud-ish to be offering a new range of wines on this flight, they’re a coltish Thursday vintage and best served with a cola or ginger ale mixer which is sold seperately. I’ve turned off the seatbelt sign - I know you can see that and I apologise for the fact we’re required to notify you using three paragraph announcements each time I manipulate a light which is a foot and a half from your eyes and accompanied with a “dong” noise - but if you have enough braincells to reverse the order in which we taught you how to operate a seatbelt, you can take yours off.
In addition to that choreography of mindless safety instructions about things like “where to find the six doors in what is essentially an oblong room” and “if you’re stranded in the pacific ocean, here’s a whistle” I’d like to take twenty seconds to interject further into your viewing of Two and a Half Men to point out the time at your destination as well as the weather. I know you would’ve found this out when you arrived, but I wanted to make sure you had absolutely NOTHING to do while waiting the inexplicable half hour for what is left of your baggage to arrive.
So sit back - by sit back I mean sit back the 25mm your seat will recline and only until we begin the 40 minute descent into our destination city - enjoy the parts of the flight you can around the entertainment system freezing and rebooting, and I’ll chat to you again on our approach while the stewardesses go around and snap at people for still having iPods on. In that prepared speech I’ll be going over some more rules about when you can stand up after the 20km taxi from the landing runway to whichever gate we’re allocated due to being 25 minutes late, as well as some more mythology around how we’re going to be refueling so you can’t use your mobile phone or dark soled shoes on exit.
