Safety cards are an important item on board an aircraft. They show you what to do in the unlikely event of an emergency and I’ve always found them to be very interesting.

I’m still bitter that my Mum wouldn’t let me take the safety card from my very first flight when I was a kid. When I last flew with British Airways, there were two versions on board so I got to see the differences.

Two Versions Of A Safety Card?

British Airways safety cards usually have an issue number on the front to show how many revisions there have been. On my last flight, my seat pocket had the latest issue while the middle seat pocket had the one before.

This meant I could put the two together and compare the changes. Of course, a usual person probably wouldn’t care either way, but I was all over checking that out immediately.

So, What Changed?

Checking each piece of the card side by side eventually revealed the first change. Two new boxes were added at the very top of one of the pages, an exit sign and the green exit symbol.


That was relatively minor and I wondered if that was the whole reason to reissue the safety card, which is no small event. After all, one card has to be printed for every seat on that aircraft type in the fleet. There were more changes however.


It appears there is a whole different lifejacket type in the fleet which warrants its own pictures. The man on the right hand side is the one with the new type, so I found that interesting. I’m not sure why they’re different but they are and it’s been pointed out.

Overall Thoughts

Yes, this is the epitome of being an aviation geek. That being said, I have always wondered what the differences are between safety card issues and now I know. I thought it was kinda cool!

There are people who collect safety cards and I guess someone out there has all the versions. Do you read the instructions each time you fly or just leave it and hope for the best? Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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