Inflight announcements: how many are too many?

Fully appreciate what you’re saying Chris! I get that the mandatory pre-departure and safety ones have to happen. The landing ones need to be trimmed as we just don’t care about 90% of what’s being said. Some airlines/crews just don’t get that customers want them to leave their pa devices alone.

Spot on Chris! The announcements are becoming a bit too much.
These days I just want to get on board, start my work/movie and not have my train of thought broken every 5 minutes. Any announcements beyond those that are necessary are just irritating now. And also the crew can sometimes be over bearing too. For example, if I'm tucking into my meal and watching a video then I don't need to be asked if everything is fine with my meal.
Of course everything is fine, that's why I'm enjoying and watching my movie! If something was wrong I'd push my call button and tell you!
When I want to have a chit chat with the crew I'll go to the galley and if they're not busy and look like they want a chat then I'll chat, the rest of the time let's leave each other alone to do our things!

Don‘t get me started about Cathay, super annoying, long and unnecessary announcements often in three languages (English, Cantonese and Mandarin, sometimes additional local language of the destination, in Sri Lanka‘s case two local languages!!). Often bullshit ones such as duty free promotions as if I was flying on Ryanair. Also don‘t understand why they can’t make all the safety announcements prior to take-off and not bother us after wheels-up.

Agreed, too many announcements are a pain especially when they are unnecessary. I totally accept that some are important - I like to know who is flying the plane, how long the flight will be, what the weather is expected to be like. And of course one when it's time to secure the cabin.

What about the personal welcome to high status fliers and the crew go to the wrong person, or they are always checking their I-pad rather than working it out in advance and writing discretely on a piece of paper; or they ignore partner/spouse sitting next to them in the chat. This is on top of long winded announcements in 2-3 languages already mentioned.

Regular on QF long haul. They get it about right. During the long Indian or Pacific ocean runs at night they only come on the PA when turbulence is forecast. Otherwise usual announcements for take off and landing. Thankfully no more duty free. I wonder if they also need to make these announcements for legal reasons. The PAX are in the care of the airline and if something goes wrong then the carrier is at fault potentially unless the PAX was not wearing a belt or following other instruction.

HKG-BKK recently on CX 2 hours 30 mins and I can’t finish a movie says a lot about their announcements. On qantas I pretty much accept im not going to watch anything for the last 45mins due to the interruptions. If my drinks are full and im eating my meal I don’t need to be asked how its all going, its going well.

They need to tone it down.

Even domestic are becoming far too long and too many , you notice it most when using the IFE that keeps pausing for the announcement.

Or on American Airlines when they force you to listen to the credit card big sell!

Chris you are spot on, QF has got it right in my opinion as has VA. SQ up until about a year ago was like CX and then it stopped, i asked the cabin manager once about it and he said that there had been s o many complaints from passengers that management had no choice but to tone it down.

Worst I had was Easyjet to Basel. All announcements in English, French and German and being a budget airline along with the usual boarding/safety announcements, it included

I was once doing DXB-LHR with QF, and we were delayed after boarding. The captain was Richard de Crespigny of QF32 fame. He just kept on giving us facts about the A380 unitl we were ready for push-back. All about this size, the amount of air the engines inhale every second, how many cars could be parked on the wingspan etc. All very interesting for a plane nerd like me, but I could see a few people around getting a bit tired of it.

A recent flight on Asiana was bizarre. 45 mins in to the flight, after most people had started their movies, they decided to play a 2min promo for their duty free, and then made 3 more announcements during the rest of the flight!

I flew CGK to SIN on Jetstar Asia yesterday and the announcements were more than I had ever experienced. Given everything was announced in English and Bahasa, the announcements went for about 15 minutes after take-off; the poor flight attendant was going hoarse!

They make announcements on flights? Didn't notice whilst watching the latest Netflix binge on my iPad... Oops.

My pet hate with announcements is when you can't even understand what they are staying.

Not only are the number of PAs annoying, the volume can be unbearable for the QF safety video. Loud, I guess to make you pay attention but if you have started your IFE it is excruciatingly loud.

It's not just the number, but the length. Some are just endless rambling nonsense with pauses etc.

The issue I see with too many and too many long ones is - everyone just starts ignoring them.

I get annoyed near the end of a QF flight when a series of short announcements interrupt the movie I am watching. Why can't they combine these into one longer announcement which would mean fewer interruptions to my concentration?

I particularly love how announcements are strategically cued to occur juuuuust as I'm about to adjust the IFE in someway and therefore locked from doing so until 700 minutes later when the announcement finally finishes. Then I go to attempt the IFE adjustment again and the same announcement starts again but in Cantonese. Rinse, repeat several more times. Sigh.

I think they can get away with the obligatory, "we are about to dim the lights" announcements, especially during the day.

I hate it when I am trying to use the IFE and even after the announcement is finished there is an extended period until they put the phone back to stop the announcement and let the IFE start again. On a recent flight it was stuck on the announcement screen for several minutes after they finished talking.

My biggest gripe is on some flights the volume of the announcement is deafening, to the point of being painful.

My preference is “welcome, your crew are Susie, Joanne and Leonard and now the safety dance”, then pre-recorded clips.

The FAA and EASA compel all Passenger Airlines to provide Safety announcements on board.

The loud announcements are so they can be heard above the sound of people chattering.

I would love if you could select your preferred language on your entertainment screen and it would only then feed through that language. Then return to whatever you were watching when the other languages are playing.

Given most of the messages (on most airlines anyway) are pre-recorded and the video delivery is via Back of seat or personal device, surely they could ask people when booking what their preferred language is and then run them all simultaneously? That way the broadcast message (ie not through headphones) could just be a language by language request to put on your headphones!

This is one of the reasons I don’t use airline’s IFE anymore. I take along my iPad loaded up with Netflix so I can watch start to finish with no announcements or interruptions.

The new AirNZ safety video last week pushed me over the edge. Enough is enough. Please stop. Just stop.

Overzealous CSM’s pashing the mic, shattering everybody’s IFE eardrums has to be stopped. Mix or attenuate the PA volume so it is lower than media. Cabin speakers no change. I have written to QF about this more than once.