care to elaborate?

are you talking about the EPNDb (Effective Perceived Noise Decibel) footprint? while now much less of an issue than 30 years ago, community noise restrictions still influence airport operations -- which runways can be used, types of aircraft that can land or take off, etc -- during certain hours (I'm familiar with SNA, SAN, DCA; doubtless there are others); takeoff footprints and approach footprints are different; both are functions of weight, engine thrust setting, flap setting, etc; both require a lot of test data to determine; each airplane/engine combination is certified separately ... see http://www.boeing.com/commercial/noi...NoiseIndex.pdf for some interesting data

if you're talking about interior noise, that's much more subjective, and obviously depends on where one is seated in the cabin ... yes there are some design (amount of insulation between the skin and sidewalls, for instance) and manufacturing (finish quality of joints between skin panels, windows/frames, etc) influences, but the interiors are all buyer-furnished equipment, and the different materials used in seats, carpets, cabin dividers etc all have slightly different sound-absorbing properties

Interior noise is not any more subjective than exterior noise, both can be measured and tested. You are correct though that it will vary depending on interior fitment and location in the aircraft.

How so? Seems like the A380 issues affect the U.S. the least since the domestic passenger carriers don't fly them and relatively little traffic to/from the U.S. is handled by them. How did "Europhobia" exacerbate the A380's issues?

On the narrowbodies, isn't each seat about an inch wider on an Airbus than on the comparable Boeing? I seem to recall reading here that the A320 fuselage is just a tiny bit larger than the 737 fuselage, so in a 3x3 config you'd get 18 inches of buttspace as opposed to 17".

The A320 has a larger diameter which allows for the larger interior...but that doesn't default mean the seat is wider. The airline decides which seat to use and it could use a smaller seat for many reasons and just have a wider aisle.

beat me to it by a minute

yes, interior noise can be measured and tested ... as I recall from my 767 flight test engineering days at Boeing, interior noise was about four hours of ground test time and about the same of flight

in contrast, takeoff and approach noise tests (on a 737-200 with two different engine configurations) were an effort that spanned several weeks ... due to wind limitations, some days we'd get a 20-minute flight with only one or two valid test conditions; other days we could spend four or five hours flying the test patterns


my comment about subjectivity is based on the fact that a statement such as "... long haul Airbus planes are much quieter than Boeings" reflects that the passenger is in the environment for hours at a time, and is thus more conscious of the personal impressions of comfort or annoyance ... for someone on the ground near the airport, a single takeoff or approach event most likely lasts less than a minute

All I know is that I just flew on the 787 in F for the first time a couple days ago and it was pretty sweet. I had no qualms about it, despite all the hullabaloo around the reliability issues and delays. No issues on my flight, at least.

If I ever get the opportunity, I'd fly on the A350 when it's still "new". I still do have to get a ride on an A380 at some point, although my travel patterns preclude that at the moment.

Couldn't care less about the airframe, I care about the cabin interior. Put me in an Emirates suite on a 707, and I'll take that over a coach seat on a 787 or A380, any day of the week.

As for safety, commercial air travel is so incredibly safe that any variation is just noise - the difference between having a 1 in 100 million risk of dying and a 1 in 125 million risk is essentially zero.

Actually it's an extra 25 million chances of not dying.
But the statement about commercial air travel being incredibly safe is true. Things are regulated, no carrier wants to risk a crash or sever incident and accountability is high.

At the end of the day, I find that most of my bookings are based on a bunch of factors like times, duration, costs, award availability, etc. Whenever I fly a new type, it's because I lucked into it...not because I actively tried.

I've flown the 787 once, DEL-NRT. From looking at seatmaps at the time, it appeared that JL was usually using something else on this route (777?) but was using a 787 something like twice a week. We got lucky - it was a last minute booking using Avios and we got two coach seats in the very back of the plane.

We enjoyed the two-side configuration. However, to the point that airlines are going to do what airlines are going to do, we felt like it was a 31" seat. Dreamliner itself: very nice with the big windows, big overhead bins, and "new" feel. My seat: every bit as uncomfortable as any other 31" coach seat in the world.

Although we noticed that Y was wide-open on most days, booking at the last minute with Avios, J was booked solid.

I'm a little biased but one of the things I really don't like about a lot of airbus planes is that the walls on the window seats are curved. Makes it difficult/awkward to lie your head against. Boeing plane walls are flat

Or a 25% higher chance of dying by choosing one over the other!

I prefer Airbus.

They are a lot less noisy than Boeing aircraft.

Are you talking about in flight ambient noises or the really weird noises airbii make when they do...just about anything mechanical?

testing for noise is not that big a deal. integrating noise tests are not that big a deal. i presume the reason airlines do not test is that some of the planes exceed osha limits (by a long way.) i realize aa is phasing out MD 80's because they are too noisy(believe that, and i'll tell you another one).

have you ever been in the last few rows of an md80?? i could not find any noise tests for md80's. airlines do not want to know how loud their planes are. osha will kill them.