carlosdca

I am not sure this has to do with covid or pax mix.
I do agree that the habit is more prevalent now (not only on airplanes) and, yes, annoying as hell.

Last October in LAX-MIA (narrowbody/no IFE), a woman was watching videos without headphones - very loud - and I tried to keep my cool thinking she would stop at some point. But nope.
When I could not take it anymore, I asked her politely if she could turndown the volume or put on her headphones.
She was very apologetic and immediately complied.

I would always try that first. Most of the times people are simply not aware of how loud their devices are.
In case you get someone rude that doesn't care AND if you really can't take it anymore, I would ask the FA to allow to change seats if possible.

Can someone clarify if there is an actual AA policy that does not allow using device speakers but only headphones?

econ

This is another case where noise-cancelling headphones are useful, although still very sad if they have to be used for this purpose.

Yep, I've even noticed it a few times recently on biking/hiking trails in local parks. Extremely annoying.

ISTFlyer

I don't know if there is a policy regarding this but I recall the crew making announcements on some of my recent AA flights asking for people to keep their headphone voice levels down when listening to something.

PointsPanda

I don't think having a speaker at a reasonable volume in the park or while hiking is unreasonable. People enjoy their music and hiking with headphones, well its not very comfortable, and in some case can be dangerous as you don't want to muffle your surroundings.

Airplanes on the other hand that annoys the heck out of me.

Also happened to me recently seated next to a dad and a toddler, he just puts on the laptop turns up the volume like it was no big deal. I could barely hear it once I put my noise cancelling headphones on but I thought it was rude. This does seem to be happening more often on flights as of recent.

Antarius

I generally agree, primarily because in areas with space, everyone can find their own. That said, if there's a picnic area or seating area, monopolizing the sound is rude; ask if anyone has issues or better yet, offer to let them queue up some songs too and everyone is generally happy.

On an aircraft, there simply isn't space to find your own, so headphones or sit in silence.

skylady

There is a rule about using headsets, as far as policing, we can only do so much to keep folks in line! lol

bchandler02

I find a good counter to people that like to play rap music for the general public to hear is to play the most country thing you can think of as loud as you can back to them. Think Hank Williams Sr or something.
It usually gets the point across pretty fast.

lrdpenn

Why not tell the passenger directly to use headphones? Odds of that turning into a confrontation are low on an airplane (this isn’t the subway where the best option is to glare) and I wouldn’t want a miserable flight or hinge on the hope an FA polices.

I even had one flight where a passenger had headphones but volume was still so loud it was audible across the aisle. When asked to lower volume the passenger couldn’t hear but an FA did and relayed the message.

platbrownguy

I mean kinda OT but yeah it's the hyperspecific sample that came to mind. Sample of at least a handful such flights since covid where I've woken up in a flat or nearly flat position only because the plane hit the pavement (not "close to landing"--landed, lol), and where it seemed like the crew was totally mailing it in and chatting it up in the galley all night or whatever. Most recently LAX-CLT two days ago. I avoid domestic narrowbody redeyes other than the now-nonexistent A321T, and I haven't had any AA int'l widebody flights since March. Eh. I'd rather hyperspecify than overgeneralize.

Anyhow, as for the OP, I feel like this goes into the set of things that is best policed by the passengers. If someone is being obnoxious, a polite "would you consider using headphones" etc will probably work most of the time.

Carolina2Cali

Wait, so which ended up being worse? I'd rather listen to a movie I didn't like way too loud, than a screaming kid.

That would be my roommate, unfortunately for me, COVID has ended his career, permanently it seems. I now see him a lot more often. This is celebration for anyone on this forum, though. Delta, mostly French speaking flights from NYC or LAX, if anyone is trying to figure out whom, ha!

Meaning they oversold and they just semi-randomly promoted any ole passenger up there who had not learned the "way" to behave?

It certainly is, and the clientele in Vegas are worse too, but it isn't ALWAYS the passengers fault. Previously, airlines had screens in the seats and the only way to hear them was with headphones, either free, paid for, or if you brought your own. Now with us having to bring our own devices, this is a much cleaner affair (though annoying if you don't have a stellar case with a stand)... but allows you to circumvent the necessity for headphones. Or perhaps you even brought them, but they aren't charged, or you forgot the lightning adapter, etc. With COVID, we don't even get the silly magazines and SkyMalls or related. Ack!

You're my kind of person!!!

mvoight

They do have a rule.

onanisland

Am I the only one having trouble with my headphones and mask? I can’t make the combo work. Had to go back to earbuds.

AsiaTravel2019

This is like people talking on the phone before the plane takes off and after it lands. Annoying.
And I agree with the OP, I have noticed playing electronics out loud has picked up this year. Anything anybody can do to stamp it out is much appreciated. Like people traveling with pets and pretending they're service animals. Can't wait for that to end.

jhalapin

{SNIP}

So, literally during the entire boarding process, the kid stood up on his seat and screamed at the top of his lungs that he wanted to get off of the plane. Literally for 35 minutes. Screaming, crying kicking seats and his dad over and over to the point where the FA came over and told them they would have to deplane if it didn't stop.

Flash forward to door closing. The kid was still going at it (albeit with a little less gusto) and the FA comes over and said they can't close the door with the kids like that. Mom and dad finally got him calm enough and they closed and pushed. He stayed rather calm for about 2 1/2 hours until he got restless and dad got out dinosaurs and other plushies from his bag to distract him. That lasted about 30 more minutes then he brought out the video player with the volume on 11 so the kid could hear it.

FA was fed up as the rest of us up front were and it took about 30 seconds for her to get up and come back and shut that down. She did offer ear buds for everyone and they declined.

FA walked away and the dad tells mom in the seat behind that he was going to get online and file a complaint about the FA, but he knew that they wouldn't do anything to her.

Lather, rinse, repeat when we landed and the kid didn't want to get off the plane now. Another temper tantrum.

Icing on the cake was when we deplaned via one of those zig/zag ramps (no jet bridges in Barbados) dad went to the bottom of the last ramp while mom held up everyone behind her at the top while dad videoed them coming down the ramp.

So, to answer your question, the video blasting wasn't as bad as the temper tantrums, but everyone was so tired of it all I think it grated on us more.

I did pass my business card to the FA when I deplaned in case she needed a bit of truthful backup on what happened.

YMMV

dls25

AA should make this part of the preflight announcements.