Peter Farrelly said of the film: "I was in Rhode Island the first time I saw Airplane! Seeing it for the first time was like going to a great rock concert, like seeing Led Zeppelin or the Talking Heads. We didn't realize until later that what we'd seen was a very specific kind of comedy that we now call the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker school".[20] Farrelly, along with his writing partner Bennett Yellin, sent a comedy script to David Zucker, who in return gave them their first Hollywood writing job. Farrelly said: "I'll tell you right now, if the Zuckers didn't exist, there would be no Farrelly brothers".[20]
During the Qantas Flight 72 incident over the Indian Ocean west of Australia in 2008, the captain recited some of Lloyd Bridges' lines to relieve tension while trying to land the plane. This was commented in the Air Disasters episode "Free Fall".
Thirty years later, the documentary Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story opened with a scene from the film.[51][52]
The MythBusters TV show episode "Airplane Hour" reenacted the climax of the film to see if an inexperienced pilot could land a plane with only a call from Air Traffic Control. The Mythbusters had to use a simulation to test the myth but concluded that the scene was plausible. They did, however, mention that most planes today have an autopilot to land the plane safely.
In the 2012 film Ted, main character John Bennett tells the story of how he met Lori Collins. The flashback is a close recreation of the scene where Ted Striker met Elaine Dickinson in the disco.[53]
In early 2014, Delta Air Lines began using a new on-board safety film with many 1980s references, featuring an ending with a cameo of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reprising his role as co-pilot Roger Murdock.[54]
In 2014, Travel Wisconsin began airing an ad with Robert Hays and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reprising their roles from the film. Kareem makes the comment "Why did I ever leave this place?" referring to his time playing for the Milwaukee Bucks.[55][56][57] Hays also reprises his role as an airline pilot in Sharknado 2: The Second One.
The first episode of the eighth season of the TV series The Goldbergs re-enacts certain scenes.
