Over the years, Marty Cobb, veteran flight attendant for Southwest Airlines, found that anecdotal and humorous safety instructions break up the monotony for well-seasoned travelers and relieve the anxieties of first-time fliers.
Recently, Cobb became the subject of a YouTube video, featuring her popular safety antics and coaxing laughs out of countless Southwest patrons. Her video has gone viral and drawn more than 11 million viewers to YouTube.
Cobb received a phone call from the producers of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to appear as a guest on Tuesday’s airing. Sunday, she hopped on a plane to California along with her two daughters, one being Hagan Parkman, junior communication major.
“I remember it had 33 views and she was freaking out,” Parkman said. “I shared it and then I had some friends who were sharing it and it just blew up so quickly. It definitely was a really cool experience and I’m glad people got to see that side of her.”
Cobb said she received a preliminary call from Degeneres’ producers on April 14. When she received the second call three days later, she said she “screamed like a school girl.”
Cobb said being asked to appear on Ellen was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. She said she always admired the talk show host not just for humor, but also for her ability to “pay it forward.”
“I just love that kind of person she is,” Cobb said. “To be on her show – I would have been happy to be in the audience, and the fact that I could be there with my family made it that much more memorable. I just will never forget it.”
Parkman said her mom began putting a twist on flight safety instructions early in her career. Humor and positivity are a part of Cobb’s personality that shows through in her job, Parkman said.
“She’s funny, like, that act she does on the plane, it’s not scripted,” Parkman said. “She’s like that in real life.”
As a flight attendant, everyone is trained a particular way and taught the same protocols. However, many flight attendants put their own spin on safety, Cobb said.
“Some sing, some rap – you know, everybody has their thing and we’re able to do that as long as we get the point across and as long as we’re safe, we can still have a good time,” Cobb said.
Cobb said one of the reasons she uses humor at the beginning of a flight is to break up the monotony for those who travel often and to attract the patron’s attention.
“It makes people listen to it more, not just something we do all day, everyday,” Cobb said. “People that fly a lot – it kind of goes in one ear and out the other. To be able to make it fun does make people listen to it a little bit more.”
Parkman said flying on an airplane can often create anxiety and the instructions provide a distraction from any uneasiness the passenger might be feeling.
“At the end, one woman came up and said that her mother or her son had passed away and she was dreading flying,” Parkman said. “Because of my mom it made the experience so much better. She definitely knows how to lighten the mood because flying can be scary and a very stressful situation.”
Cobb said she has always felt like attitude is a choice. She said she tells her children that even if they are not working their dream job, it is important to perform a job well.
“One of my favorite sayings is, ‘You can’t always choose where you work, but you can choose how you work,'” Cobb said. “I think that your attitude and the way that you react – you never know why people are traveling and just to sometimes smile and listen and reach out to people, it makes such a difference.”