Thousands of Air New Zealand passengers will from this week get their flight safety instructions from staff wearing nothing but body paint.

The airline has decided to expand its use of body-painted staff from advertisements to the in-flight safety video used on 737 domestic flights.

It hopes to catch the attention of travellers, particularly those who often ignore the safety video despite being told they need to watch it even if they are frequent customers.

"Safety is paramount and non-negotiable at Air New Zealand," Air New Zealand general manager marketing Steve Bayliss said.

"We wanted to find a way to deliver these important pre-flight messages to our domestic travellers in a way that was genuine, engaging and fun, while meeting all our CAA and operational guidelines."

The new safety video began running on Monday.

AUCKLAND NZPA