Arriving in Chicago from Pittsburgh, the cabin attendant made her prepare-to-deplane spiel, but she ended not with the usual "Thank you for flying United" but:
"May the doors of Heaven open and abundant blessings rain upon you."
I was taken aback. Is that in the airline script? How did she sneak it in? Where did the phrasing come from; it sounds like it could be almost any religion.
The plane announcements seem to be getting looser and less and less scripted these days. As the amenities of flying get lessened it seems the attendants are trying harder to show a sort of "We're in it together" attitude that somehow manifests in more jokes, and a looser style. On the other side of the coin, have you flown Song yet? It is a subsidiary of Delta. They actually do a pre-recorded MUSICAL version of the safety announcements (seat belts, exits, oxygen masks) that the attendants DANCE along to. It was... interesting... to say the least. All 4 legs of my flight (2 coming, 2 going) had a different style of music, Salsa, Blues, etc...
If I heard anything so biblical on a plane, I would assume something real bad was about to happen.
If on the other hand, I read on the back of a barf bag, 'May the doors of Heaven open, and abundant blessings rain _from_ you, well, I think I'd find this strangely comforting.
It all reminds me of a story I remember from a while back, about a pilot who asked all his Christian passengers to raise their hands, before recommending they go about the business of converting the heathens.
Couldn't find many links to the story, but here is one reference; http://talkleft.com/new_archives/005275.html
Back a few years ago, one of our smaller Canadian airlines "West Jet" let their flight attendants jazz up the safety announcement a bit. One time when I was flying the attendant did a long poem with lines like, "If you need to exit the plane, don't be fussin' and fightin', 'cause this plane's equiped with floor level lightin' ". It was fantastic. We gave him a round of applause when he was done.
Reminds me of a rather rough landing once, going into the Denver Airport. The plane's wheels had just started to touch the ground when what must have been a strong cross wind pitched the plane to the side a bit. We sort of bounced and wobbled a few times before both wheels made contact and started to feel more stable, but at that point we must have spent too much time getting on the ground, because all of a sudden the pilot really laid on the breaks. I've flown quite a few times, and I've never been on a anything stopping that fast. The thing that really sticks out in my mind though is that right at the initial point of braking, the Pilot bellowed out over the intercom "Whoaaaahh Horsey!!" He managed to take a very stressful situation, and turned it into something funny and memorable.