Flight Attendants Recommend This Potentially Life-Saving Tip You Should Do While Boarding

Before you pop in your noise-canceling headphones and zone out for the duration of your flight, airline crew members recommend taking a few moments to ensure your safety should an emergency occur. Flying can be a stressful experience, and it's no surprise that some travelers have a bit of airport anxiety. It may occasionally seem as though the people who work for airlines take the rules too seriously, that they're picking on you, or that they're making things harder than they need to be. As a frequent traveler, I can understand these sentiments, but as a former flight attendant, I must emphasize how important it is to listen to every piece of safety advice your flight crew gives you.

Flight attendants aim to help make sure travelers are comfortable, but their most important job is to ensure the safety of everyone on board the aircraft. They are always on the lookout for safety issues that could arise, and there are a lot of things they notice about you when you board a plane. They are extensively trained on what to do in the event of an emergency, and they're full of tips and tricks that don't always make it into the safety information card.

One common piece of safety advice that's offered in the safety demo before take off is that passengers should take note of their nearest emergency exit. Most flight attendants, and former flight attendants like myself, recommend taking things a step further and counting exactly how many rows of seats are in between you and that exit. During dangerous situations like evacuations, emergency landings, and over-water landings — knowing that key piece of information could save your life.

When in-flight emergencies do occur, there isn't always time to prepare. Evacuating the aircraft as quickly as possible is imperative. Through researching deadly plane crashes, the FAA established that all passengers must be able to evacuate the aircraft within 90 seconds. Flight attendants are trained to make that happen, and as an added security measure, they point out the emergency exits to passengers in the safety demo before every flight. 

Knowing where the nearest emergency exit is located is the first step to ensuring that you make it off the aircraft safely during an evacuation. Even though I no longer work as a flight attendant, I make sure to count the number of headrests between my seat and the nearest emergency exit every single time I board an aircraft. I repeat that number to myself several times until it's committed to memory so I know that I can feel my way through the cabin and locate the exit even if I can't see clearly.

Imagine the chaos and confusion that you might feel during an emergency evacuation. It might be dark in the aircraft cabin and outside. You might have limited visibility. There is emergency lighting on airplanes, but it could malfunction or be obscured by smoke. It's better to be safe than sorry. If you can't see the nearest emergency exit, knowing how many seats are between you and your means of escape will allow you to feel your way there. You can grab onto the headrests and count them until you reach the correct row. Knowing this information could very well save your life, and it's a simple precaution to take. 

Nobody wants to consider their plane could go down when boarding their flight. It's an extremely scary thought, but remember that flying is still one of the safest modes of transportation. The risk of being killed in a plane crash is just one in 11 million for most Americans. Chances are, your flight will be perfectly safe and you'll deplane at your destination without incident. That being said, emergencies can and do still occur.

Although flying is widely considered safe, it's crucial that passengers remember that life threatening situations can happen. After a series of tragic plane crashes in 2025, many modern flyers are feeling more concerned about the safety of air travel. In 2025, there were well over 1,000 aviation accidents around the globe. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, 266 of them were fatal accidents.

Airline crew members will do everything in their power to ensure that every single passenger makes it safely off of the aircraft in the event of an emergency landing on water or land, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take extra precautions to increase your chances of surviving a dangerous situation. Counting the seats between you and the exit during boarding is a simple way to make sure you'll be able to escape. It might just turn out to be life-saving. For more safety information, check out the immediate steps to take if you survive a plane crash, according to a pilot.