Mats

Just reading this thread makes my skin crawl. I have so many memories of being startled, jarred awake from sleep by that 15 out of 10 volume automated announcement.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
And just when you thought you could go back to sleep...
"!גבירותיי ורבותיי"

It makes me want to rip that "Flight Attendant Panel" off the wall of the 777. And I'm not a particularly aggressive sort of person.

zombietooth

I put these on after dinner on international flights, and never hear the myriad, useless announcements. The only downside is that you really can't hear any voices, so you have to remove one to communicate unless you are a lip reader.

See here: http://www.amazon.com/SportEAR-Silic...8824013&sr=1-8

wxguy

Yesterday on a full TG 777-200 MNL-BKK: Boarded in 25 minutes -- three groups -- disabled/families, business/*G, coach. I was among the first on-board and there were ZERO announcements during the entire process. The first (and short in two languages) announcement made was that the boarding door was closed, no more cell phones, and arm doors for departure.

United: compare and contrast.

eng3

I was forced to take a recent flight on US and was reminded of their announcement of a "special offer" trying to sell their credit card and coming through the aisle with pamphlets. I find this far more annoying.
I've become acustom to the barrage of announcements and have learned to ignore them. Sometimes I can carry on a decent conversation with my seat mate or even another FA sometimes during the announcements without a hiccup.

Another some what related annoyance are when I fly planes with directv. You hear the FAs make annoucements, then they annouce that they are showing a video asking us to pay attention, then Jeff's video, then the (odd and awkward) safety video (repeating much of what the FA previously said), then the commercial for DirecTV, then some more commercials (UA card, springhill suites, etc)). But I too have learned to ignore these as well.

htb

Even that's unnecessary. A one-time "since turbulences can occur at any time you are obligated to keep your seat belt fastened whenever you are seated" at the beginning of the flight is sufficient. No need to wake up 200+ pax during a night flight.

I'm also one of those travelers who loathe the in-flight announcements about the weather, duty-free shopping, flight route, connecting flight information, etc. I prefer if all necessary anouncements be made at the very beginning of the flight and then the speakers remain silent, so I can either sleep or watch one of the movies.

HTB.

halls120

I solve the problem with my Bose headphones. I just switched to the over the ear model, and I hear even less of the chatter than I used to.

Loren Pechtel

If you're getting a bunch of please take your seats announcements it's because there are some south ends of northbound horses that aren't doing it. I hear it a bunch on flights with a bunch of Chinese people, I hear it far less on domestic flights.

One announcement with this stuff at the start of the flight would be fine. There should be no non-urgent announcements after that during sleep time, though.

Yeah, I would like to see the FAA crack down on babble in the safety videos. They ask you to watch it for safety reasons and then they babble--of course people figure it's just another case of crying wolf when in reality there might be newbie fliers that need to know where the exits are.

You can get the same level of noise reduction with the ordinary foam ones.

mahasamatman

True - neither one is very good.

pinks

Use the ear plugs, then put the Bose over-ear headphones over it. Only problem is it can be tough to sleep in certain positions with the bulky headphones.

why fly

time UA told FA's we don't want to listen to them NATTER!

SwisherTown

The rib ear plugs look cool but are not as good as the foam. Key for both is using the correct size and some peoples ears work better with one style than the other. Advertised noise deduction is 27 Db with the ribbed and 34 db with foam.

I have and use to use the Bose QC 25 headphones on planes. I now use the Bose QC 20 earbuds and Sure 425 as backups if the 25s lose charge. The Sure 425s deliver the best sound followed by the QC 25s. The QC 20s are better than the earlier Bose noise cancellation headphones. The QC 25s and 20s are not tuned to cancel noise in the human speech frequencies but the headphones do offer more noise reduction. The 425s are best for reducing all noise. The QC 20s have a button which activates the microphone so you can hear the traffic or in these instances the flight attendant. I can never find it quick enough so I just pull one bud out of an ear. Noise is significantly less with all of these but you can still hear noise comparable for me to the ear plugs provide in BF and just like BF but soup.

flyfd

+1

All the discussion about noise cancelling ear phones only helps (a little) for sleeping but not when trying to watch a movie.

FreFly

I think you refer to the fact that the announcements interrupt the movies shown over the IFE system. This is why I download movies onto my tablet. As an added bonus, screens on high-end tables are better than the IFE screen.

NeoOfTheCRS

I didn't read all 5 pages, but if anyone at United is reading this, i will add my two cents that the number of announcements are ridiculous and in some flights with 3 languages it is incessant assault of noise. I have noted some flight attendants which extend their announcements even further with completely useless blather just to hear themselves talk. There is a guy on the DXB-IAD flights that talks about the functioning of the air conditioning on board, the function of the IFE, and the variety of duty free selections blah blah blah.

But the worst of all is automated Mr. Seatbelt voice that comes booming over the PA system waking me up 5 times on the short-ride from IAD-DUB. (yes i do have ear plugs in before anyone offers me a link to amazon). There is also the ban on children announcement in a certain row. No one is listening, cares or processes it. Why don't the FA's just enforce it quietly as opposed to blathering endlessly on the PA about rare circumstances that they could just handle with the victims/customers.

I have been on lufthansa flights where the announcement took about 45 seconds, with the seatbelt sign off for most of the flight and the flights were actually enjoyable and quiet.

DudeE

All of this reminds me of the famous George Carlin routine... the one that starts with a rant about the nonsensical term "pre-boarding" and mocks the euphemism "water landing."