Would it be legal for airlines to replace the video with a quiz, for those passengers who opt in? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43608141

I don't think the current video format is very good for retention. Putting it in the form of a quiz could help frequent travelers actually memorize the information over time, which could in turn save lives.

https://www.retrievalpractice.org/

I don’t know whether it would be legal, but I 100% agree with your suggestion - a more active form of learning would be more effective. Professor Molesworth (the expert I interviewed for the article) actually suggested that airlines should make passengers count how many seats away from the emergency exit they’re sitting - again, making that a more active process.

There’s also the argument that to improve retention, the regulatory body should decrease the amount of “key safety messages” that need to be included in the videos (which ends up being around 35-45). If you decrease that number, retention of the info you do mention should go up.