Exit rows do need to pay attention

Stuff reports:

A woman and man were kicked off an Air New Zealand flight in Wellington after they reportedly refused to pay attention to an airline safety briefing. 

If you just read that part, you might have sympathy for them. I don’t always pay attention, especially if it is my second flight of the day.

But there’s more to it:

“The video started playing and the flight attendant held up the card, but the woman started looking down at her book.”
She soon picked up her phone, and both she and her male travel companion were looking at their phones, she said. 
“A flight attendant said very patiently ‘Can you please watch what’s happening because this is the exit row’.

If you are in the exit row, you have agreed to help in an emergency and you do need to pay attention. I’m often in the front row, and I will always put my device or book down and pay attention to the briefing – especially when it isn’t the video, but an actual flight attendant.

“The flight attendant was super kind and kept asking her, but the woman put her fingers in her ears.”  

Wow, that is super rude. What twats.

It was shockingly arrogant behaviour, the passenger said. 
They didn’t seem to care that they’d delayed the plane for other passengers by 25 minutes, she said. 
“You’d think they’d be embarrassed or mortified, but they seemed quite chuffed about the whole thing.”  
When they were told that police were waiting for them, the woman pulled out her phone and loudly tried to make a booking with Jetstar, she said. 
Air New Zealand did really well in how they handled the situation, she said. 
“I just felt for the flight attendants, because they got abused.” 
​A police spokeswoman said police were requested to meet one passenger at the airport on Tuesday morning.
“The passenger will receive an infringement notice under Civil Aviation Authority rules relating to the use of a cellphone,” the spokeswoman said.

Good.