How Social Media Reacted To The SpiceJet Holi Dance And Suspended Pilots?

Recently on 17th march 2014, mid-air SpiceJet Holi dance took place aboard eight flights. It was a complete surprise flash mob for passengers. It was a joyful celebration but the repercussions this Indian Airline had to face after the dance has created ripples on Social Media. Let’s take a deeper look into the SpiceJet Holi celebrations and it’s reaction on social media.

Before moving ahead, I was thinking-

Is this something that happened for the first time?

This has never been done before on the Indian turf, but a lot abroad. In honour of India’s Republic Day, FinnAir’s flight attendants surprised passengers with a choreographed routine set on a Bollywood song. Cebu Pacific flight attendants danced to Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” while simultaneously showing passengers safety procedures. Lastly who can forget Virgin America’s extremely viral and popular safety instruction video which took social media by storm even though it wasn’t in-flight mid-air it garnered a lot of hits on YouTube.

You might find this interesting – Social Media lessons from Virgin America

Back to SpiceJet, What actually happened?

The performance was a flash-dance on a famous Bollywood song. It was a 2.5 minute dance and some passengers also joined in. The videos of these events were taken and uploaded on video-sharing website YouTube and other social media sites as well. And in the video it can be seen that the pilot coming out of the cockpit and taking photographs of the celebrations.

SpiceJet officials have claimed they followed all the regulations and not at once did they sabotage or put the passengers in danger at any situation. Once the Video was uploaded it didn’t go instantly viral, once DCGA objected that’s when everyone started taking notice of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgjHTF0VbBM

What People were saying about it on Twitter?

Those who enjoyed the video: As it can be seen the following tweets, they loved the dance and found it quite enjoyable.

Wud love to fly Spice! DGCA being silly issuing notice! RT @soniandtv Loving the Spicejet Holi dance :-) http://t.co/2moFveN4iG …

— GAURAV C SAWANT (@gauravcsawant) March 20, 2014

Spicejet ka dance na hua jaise MH370 ka khona ho gaya!! DGCA seriously Get a Life…

— Vaibhav (@BalakNadan) March 20, 2014

Did they put lives at risk?Seemed like harmless fun [email protected] suspends 2 pilots of SpiceJet for allowing cabin crew to dance in flight

— Ruchica Tomar (@ruchicatomar) March 20, 2014

@Meedana Dear DGCA we all loved the Holi dance onboard Spice jet Pls dont be soooo secular & punish them in d name of security- Grow up DGCA

— shubhadip mukherjee (@masodown) March 20, 2014

https://twitter.com/RAJ_ARYAN91/statuses/446536462256058368

Though there is nothing that SpiceJet has conveyed on their Facebook/Twitter about this. But people are talking in-and-out. Here is a comment on Facebook that shows how much people appreciate such an act.

The repercussions faced by SpiceJet Airlines?

The directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) on Wednesday issued a show-cause notice to SpiceJet, asking why its licence should not be suspended, after a video of the cabin crew on a Goa-Bangalore flight dancing in the aisles went viral on social media. The DGCA notice states that crew and passengers dancing in the aisles endangered aircraft safety. The regulator has already suspended two pilots of the airline; the only error was due to the pilot who came out of the cockpit.

Now let’s see how social media reacts to these suspended Pilots: The reaction towards the mid-air Holi flash mob and then which led to the pilots being suspended has mixed-reactions. Some people feel it is justified for the pilots for being suspended. And some are of the opinion that DCGA should focus on situations which require more attention and this was totally harmless.

I dont quite understand what problem DGCA has if theres a small dance on a @flyspicejet flight.. The pilot has been suspended..

— MediaCrooks (@mediacrooks) March 20, 2014

SpiceJet Pilots suspended for Holi Dance.
Than Honey Singh should be hanged to death for Lungi Dance.

— Chikoo (@TweetErrant) March 20, 2014

SpiceJet pilots celebrating HOLI 'up in the air'… suspended. But I think they deserved the pink slip…!!

— Pallavi(Ruby) Baruah (@25rubybaruah) March 20, 2014

There are 1000 more serious problems in India than finding problems in a dance show by spicejet crew member during Holi !

— sumit (@sumitsaurabh) March 20, 2014

So the two #SpiceJet pilots have been suspeded because one of them came out for a minute & the other never came out to dance. Clap for DGCA.

— Nilesh Surana (@nileshsurana) March 20, 2014

PLZZZZ it was such a cute dance by Spicejet Crew. Lets Outrage against who suspended those pilots.

— pinku (@LEDtvn) March 20, 2014

more here

What I think?

The video was brief and light-hearted. I think SpiceJet was inspired by Virgin Airlines (they do a lot of fun things like these videos to break the monotony). Unfortunately it backfired for them as DCGA was not amused at all, and now they are facing a different music altogether. I think the flash-mob was a great move, maybe the pilot coming out to take video/picture was a little above the belt and that dragged SpiceJet into trouble.

And I totally agree with Times of India saying–

Air safety obviously cannot be taken lightly, but DGCA seems to have unnecessarily adopted a dour attitude in this case. SpiceJet’s Holi celebrations were hardly unprecedented.

Your turn

So what do you think about SpiceJet’s mid-air Holi Celebration? Do share your insights with us in the comments section below.