manhattan92

I can't get over how many announcements are made on UA flights by microphone-hyper crew members. Recently I counted 8 pre-departure announcements on my Dubai to IAD flight. In addition, the announcements in English were repeated in Arabic. I mean, how many times should we be alerted that this is the flight to IAD and to get out of the aisles quickly, etc.? Are passengers so thick that they need to constantly be reminded where they are headed and to take their seats on an airplane?

After the mind-numbing pre-departure announcements came the in-flight announcements about seat belts, bathroom use, duty free, meals, seat belts again, customs forms, the weather, the window shades, the name of the purser, the pilots' hobbies and anything else that can disturb the peace of passengers on a 1 AM departure. After the umpteenth obnoxious announcement, the purser made one more announcement: "I will stop making announcements to let you sleep now[!]"

I compare the slew of announcements to the few and actually important announcements made on foreign carriers--I haven't heard of too many passengers on the wrong flight or forgetting to sit down on the foreign airlines.

KENNECTED

Better to have more information than none.

In addition, there may be passenger that do not fly as much as those here on FT. Leisure passengers most likely do not "know the drill" so the "noise" is necessary.

Every one is entitled to his or her opinion, but this comes across to me, as "noise" about nothing.

Baze

If you are one of the first bunch of people to board you will hear all of the announcements. If you are one of the last you will probably only hear 1 announcement. If they wait until everyone is aboard and then make the announcement, what's the point, most are already sitting down.

jetaway96

If it bothers you that much, a pair of noise reduction headset would do. United wants the boarding anouncement repeats every 10 minutes. Lucky that you are not flying HKG when the anouncement will be translate into both Mandarin and Cantonese.

Eadward

Indeed

mduell

Some of the intra-Asia flying is so bad they basically never stop talking the entire flight.

FTstudent

When duty free, credit card applications and whatever other forced advertising starts I get out the noise canceling headphones and start whatever TV episodes I brought to binge watch. I never start a movie on the IFE until I know its safe.

Kannai

Compared to AC, SQ, and NH (the other airlines I've flown recently), UA does indeed seem to be excessive with their announcements. (AC domestic—so En & Fr—seems to have fewer/shorter announcements than UA domestic—so En only.) It's not just the repeated smaller-item-under-the-seat announcements as people are boarding, but that's excessive too. It's so much more pleasant to board a flight or to actually sit back and relax if the announcement are kept to a minimum.

fastair

You think that's bad, depart from the Intl terminal@ORD show up around 15:00. You will here Ethiad making a 30 second page every 5 min until their flight leaves at 20:10. They have 1 flight a day and they repeat the "if you connected in on another carrier, please see an Ethiad representative at your gate for passport verification. By 17:30, they start calling out the individual names of those people until around 19:45, when they start the first of 6 or 7 final boarding announcements." Really?!?! 5 hours early and repeated 10x/hr. That, is excessive.

mahasamatman

More announcements does not equate to more information. It just means more babble. As the signal-to-noice ratio reaches zero, people tend to ignore all announcements. It's like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. I (and I'm sure others) stopped watching the safety videos when Smisek appeared - if there's something actually important there, I'll miss it. (Though I do always watch the live safety presentations out of respect to the FAs.)

Too bad. I liked your original...

TonyBurr

I find the Asian, especially the Japanese, airlines have far more announcements, and again in at least two language. The amount in each annoucement seems more that on UA.

exerda

I dunno; I've taken plenty of flights where the announcements went on for at least 10-15 minutes after takeoff. Back in the days when we actually had a good chance of Channel 9, this was really annoying, as it meant missing out on the most interesting portion of the flight from an ATC perspective.

The worst are the people who keep the mike on but don't talk for long periods, like they're trying to remember what to say or something. "United security policy requests that you please use the bathrooms in your ticketed cabin ... ... ... ... Please do not remove your seatbelts until the captain has turned off the seat belt light ... ... ... ... because there can be turbulence at any time ... ... ... we request you wear your seatbelts at all time ... ... After we have completed our climb, we will be offering a beverage service ... ... beer, wine, and cocktails ... ... may be purchased in the main cabin ... ... please refer to your Hemispheres magazine ... ... for the selection ... ... of beverages on today's flight. ... ... ... ... We apologize in advance if your selection is not available. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Now, please sit back, and relax on our way to ... ... Paris ..." [Then after 15 more seconds of open mike, rinse & repeat in French.]


Yes, the longer and more banal the announcements get, the more likely they are to be ignored.

Liz

UA requires announcements every 10 min prior to departure, verbatim, from the announcement book, subject to discipline if you do not comply. Since the merger, the number of required announcements has increased dramatically.

benmacd

Why is that?

I find US airlines in general babble way too much. The art of concise announcements seems to have been lost here. Lots of filler words, long pauses. Bottom line: less people pay attention to them.

It's amusing that other airlines seem to be able to provide announcements in multiple languages, yet are somehow able to keep them shorter.

jetaway96

Please name a few? I've been travel quite a bit on other airlines and it seem their anouncement either the same or longer. Maybe next time I will actually time them as a research to see if this is the truth.