That's only for Golds. I was talking about all the fantastic privileges Silver members get. Don't even know where to begin...

I'm 100% with you. There is a huge PA creep at aeroplanes, airports and on those damn buses in Dubai airport. By the time the bus is moving towards the terminal most people probably are aware that they are in a bus on the way to the terminal without a need for an endless announcement on that.

And then there's the latest "we are now arriving at XXX. Next time you fly out of XXX in first or business, or are skywards gold, you may use the lounge". What the he** is that needed for?

EK is not the only culprit but they seem to be getting worse. And yes, often the announcements are also in the local language if that language happens to be neither Arabic nor English.

There was another thread of this same topic not so long ago. I filled the questionnaire on my flight earlier today and mentioned the noise pollution as a key factor in reducing flight comfort. I doubt the message goes through, but if you write to EK about this, you may want to give them the URL to this and the previous thread. Would probably be better, though, if someone who knows someone high up enough at EK to do something about this gave the message directly to that person.

Meanwhile, I am experimenting with different headphone, earplug and self-induced coma arrangements to block the noise. No great successes to report yet, unfortunately. When you know that an annoying announcement [would that be annoyncement in English?] is going to take place, it is very hard to not notice it.

I think this is a weird attempt to tell statusless Y pax what they're missing and hence upsell them. Most infrequent Y flyers I know don't even know what a lounge is, and so it would probably mean nothing.

It's hardly meant for the information of F/J/Gold pax, as most checkin agents will mention it and give directions if needed. Not to mention the 'Lounge Invitation' on the BP...

I haven't noticed it much as well. Its just the annoying one they play after the safety briefing that gets me! My recommendation is to have that as a voluntary one before entering ICE's main menu. After that video it's quiet for me.

The announcements after take-off are usually straight after "wheels up" so to be fair your not sleeping by then. And they're in Arabic+English.

This thread is beginning to sound like something from TravelBuzz where some folk get so annoyed about the little things in life.

Just ignore the announcements. Read a book or a magazine. Talk to your travelling companion. Order another drink. Do some work. Shut your eyes and doze off. It's just not worth increasing your blood pressure for.

To KU104 and ft101:

I'm not sure whether I can agree with you on this one.

First, even if the ICE video is played shortly after wheels-up, it is still highly distractive. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one whose objective on night flights is to go straight to sleep, skip all the food and drinks and such. As such, over a period of time, the video + all the other announcements become very irritating. Yes, I am often asleep while the plane is still on the ground [and often I am also surrounded by other sleepers] and while the crew is usually very careful not to disturb the sleepers, the same can't be said of the announcements.

Second, this may sound like a small nuisance, but, the very point was that it is a nuisance nevertheless and there should be a way to tell Emirates that the level of comfort they are offering to their passengers is being reduced by the announcements. After all, it is the very frequent fliers who they should mostly listen to. By this weekend, I will have had [is that proper English? sounds like something from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] the pleasure of watching that video five times in less than a week. I hardly see the point of being forced to watch it over and over again.

Same thing with all the other non-mandatory announcements. I would like to hear one good reason why the airlines insist on forcing them on everybody instead of only on those ones who are interested.

It is a competitive world out there and if this reduces their competitiveness, they should listen to their most frequent customers. They keep increasing the number of announcements without adding any actual information being communicated, when many passengers think that is a wrong thing to do.

I use it all the time...

My recommendation was regarding the ICE video, it should be voluntary to play on your personal system from ICE's main menu, thus reducing the noise.

Announcements are after wheels up, but people have different tolerance levels. For me after take-off announcements are not an issue for you it may be. My annoyance is random announcements during the flight!

I am a very non-discriminating type of a guy. Therefore, I get equally annoyed by all the announcement. But yes, in particular the ICE video should not be mandatory watching to everybody.

Now that I think of it, I don't think it was played at all on one of my flights last week (might have been DXB-AMS). And it could be that my memory is serving me wrong, but the ICE video on the other segments last week seemed shorter than before.