Safety card
The regulator-required pictorial card in every seat pocket showing exits, brace positions and equipment for that exact aircraft type.
Definition
The safety card is the printed briefing card in each seat pocket that shows, in pictures and minimal text, the emergency exits, the brace position, seatbelt and oxygen-mask use, life-jacket location and donning, and exit-row duties for that specific aircraft type and configuration. Regulators require it to be aboard and to match the aircraft, and the safety demonstration refers passengers to it. Airlines revise it when the cabin changes, and crew must ensure one is present at every seat.
What it means for you
Checking safety cards is part of your pre-flight cabin check, and a missing or wrong-type card is a defect to report, not a detail to ignore — an aircraft swapped at short notice is the classic way the wrong cards end up on board. At the exit rows you brief passengers using the card, and your ability to explain it clearly is assessed on line checks. It is also, quietly, the document that tells a nervous passenger you have thought about the worst case.
In practice
On an airline that operates both 737 and A320 families, each type carries its own card; a crew member on a Pegasus turnaround, where the two fleets share the network, glances at the card in every seat pocket while checking seatbelts before boarding starts.
Related terms
4 terms- Safety demonstrationSafety & trainingThe mandatory briefing before take-off on seatbelts, exits, life jackets, oxygen and the safety card — by video or crew demonstration.
- Emergency exitSafety & trainingAny door or hatch certified for evacuation — the doors crew operate and the overwing exits passengers are briefed to open.
- Cabin checkSafety & trainingThe crew's inspections of the cabin: equipment and security before boarding, walk-throughs in flight, a sweep after landing.
- Brace positionSafety & trainingThe body position passengers and crew adopt before an emergency landing to reduce injury on impact.