The SAFETY briefing
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SAFETY is a memory aid used by flight instructors, not a regulation. It covers more ground than the legal minimum, which is just the seatbelt briefing.
Say it in your own words, in the order that fits your aircraft. The content matters more than the exact phrasing.
How to fasten and unfasten, adjust the strap, and when it must be on: taxi, takeoff, landing, and any time you say so.
Where the vents are and how to open them. Useful against airsickness, point it out before anyone needs it.
Show where it is. You will almost certainly never need it, that is exactly why passengers should know now, not while searching for it.
How the doors open normally, and how the emergency exit works if the aircraft has one. Ask passengers not to touch handles in flight.
Ask for help spotting traffic using the clock method, and explain that you'll go quiet below about 1000 ft or during takeoff and landing, that is normal, not something wrong.
Ask before you start the engine, not once you're rolling. A nervous passenger often only asks if invited to.
Choose a flight
Build your briefing
Check everything you would actually cover for this exact flight. Some SAFETY items always apply. Some only make sense for certain flights. Two of them never belong in a safety briefing at all.
Beyond the checklist
Regulation only requires that each occupant is briefed on how to fasten and unfasten their seatbelt (and shoulder harness, if installed) before taxi, takeoff and landing. SAFETY is a professional standard that goes well beyond that minimum, worth doing every time regardless.
Tailor it, don't recite it
A briefing that mentions life vests on a 15-minute local flight over land sounds rehearsed, not thorough. The skill is picking the right items for this aircraft, this flight and these passengers, that's what the scenario exercise above is practising.
Life vests and flotation equipment matter for flight beyond gliding distance from shore over water. Supplemental oxygen briefings matter for sustained cruise at cabin altitudes where hypoxia becomes a factor. Neither belongs in a short local hop.
Delivery matters as much as content
Brief before engine start, not while taxiing with checklists still in your hands. Make eye contact, slow down, and treat it as a real conversation rather than a recording you're playing back.
For a first-time or nervous passenger, add a sentence or two about what they'll feel and hear, engine noise, the aircraft banking in turns, losing sight of the ground at night. Expected sensations feel very different from unexpected ones.
Sterile cockpit isn't just for airlines
Below about 1000 ft AGL and during taxi, takeoff and landing, keep the cabin quiet: no unnecessary conversation, no pointing things out. Tell passengers this in advance so silence doesn't read as something being wrong.
The same applies to camera flashes at night, a flash from the back seat can dazzle a pilot's night vision for several seconds at exactly the wrong moment.
If the pilot becomes incapacitated
On longer flights, a short note on the radio (frequency, how to key the mic, "MAYDAY") and that the autopilot or trim can hold the aircraft steady briefly, costs thirty seconds and has saved lives. It's not required for a ten-minute pattern hop, but there is rarely a good reason to skip it on a real cross-country.