We’re gonna talk to you so you might as well accept it.

You gotta help us out in case we need you,

If you don’t wanna then we’re gonna reseat you.”

Meet David Holmes, now a YouTube sensation. His claim to fame; writing his own flight announcements and performing them for lucky Southwest Airlines passengers who are asked to participate by stomping and clapping to the beat as Holmes sings over the plane’s speaker system. Rapping flight attendant

David’s idea for this was simple. He was bored. “Giving those announcements is repetitive and no one ever listens to them anyway” he explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s blog. Usually he has to make these announcements four or five times a day, and he explained that at one point if he didn’t do something different he was going to put himself to sleep, not just the passengers. When he first started doing it people thanked him saying that it was first time they ever actually listened to the emergency instructions. 

Reading the “Vibe” from Passengers

He actually wrote three raps that he performs depending on what announcement he is assigned to give; the welcome, the arrival, or the emergency instruction announcement.

David is a 40 year old former personal trainer and Las Vegas resident who began working for Southwest in 2005. He is careful to explain that he doesn’t always sing his instructions. Holmes is not lost on the relative appropriateness of his in-flight show, he notes that he would never subject passengers on a 6 am flight out of Vegas to such racket but he almost always does it on a flight into Vegas on a Friday or Saturday night. He generally gets a “vibe” from the passengers on their tolerance for such group activities.

 When asked if he just free-styled, David said that he would never embarrass himself by ad-libbing. All of his lyrics are written and practiced in advance. He never imagined that he would be an internet sensation, in fact, when one passenger claimed to have videotaped him with her mobile phone and said to him that she was going to put it on YouTube, David laughed and dared her to do it. She did, and the rest is YouTube history.

Southwest’s “Folksy” Culture

But Southwest has a long solid tradition of entertaining its passengers and making the notion of flying in an oversized tin can being propelled 30,000 feet into the air by thousands of gallons of fiery jet fuel at unimaginable speeds, more palpable to the average person.

“It’s very rare you don’t have someone ask you if this is going to be a singing flight.” That’s what Crystal Raines, executive board member of Southwest airlines’ local union told a Minneapolis newspaper last March. Southwest is known for its refusal to charge extra fees, its folksy customer service, and most of all, its profitability, at a time when most other airlines are fighting to stay afloat.  

The internet is loaded with hilarious flight attendant comedy routines as well as the singers. In fact, David probably did not start the singing of flight instructions, he was just the first to get noticed. There are various other YouTube videos of singing southwest attendants that pre date David’s, and the internet has been abuzz about the “entertaining” culture of Southwest staff.  There is the country sensation Renee Allen, who you may catch singing on a Southwest flight about the airlines’ no fee policy. There is a nameless attendant who raps safety instructions to the tune of “Ice, Ice, Baby,” and an attendant known only as “Lynda,”  who treats passengers to the classic tune “It Had To Be You.”

Will the FAA Weigh in?

An obvious question has been making the rounds in comment boxes all over the Internet, is whether singing, or altering the plain language of FAA required announcements are within FAA policy. So far, the FAA has not weighed in on the matter. Currently, FAA Specific Regulatory Requirements (S.R.R.) sec. 121.573 only require “verbal” communication of various flight safety and operational instructions to commercial air passengers. One could imagine a passenger or someone on behalf of a deceased passenger suing an airline on the basis that the flight instructions were not clear, contributing a passenger’s death or injury in a flight emergency. While this may be a novel legal question now, the future is sure to bring many more flight attendant extraordinaires that naturally will want to push the envelope for in-flight entertainment.  

The fear is that while so far these singing employees are a pleasant component to commercial flights, there is a point at which performances can become less of a memory tool and more of a distraction from the important message it communicates. If you don’t believe this is bound to happen check out this group of bikini clad flight attendants who rap the FAA required flight instructions while enjoying a day on the beach. We guarantee you will not remember them. The instructions that is.