Pilot PAs usually annoy me. You?

In My Humble Opinion
1

-1

(See below for why “-1” is there.)

I fly a lot. I don’t mind flying at all. I’m quite used to the security lines and the small seats (I’m 6’3") and all of that, and I understand that there’s some amount of inevitable inconvenience. But…

I don’t care that we’re at 33,000 feet.

I don’t care that we’re passing over Amarillo.

I don’t care that we’ll be landing on runway 22L.

With all due respect to the pilots on the SDMB (indeed, the insightful and thorough posts from pilot141, Johnny L.A., LSLGuy, and others are some of the gems of the board), why must commercial airline pilots interrupt all 150 people onboard with these overpowering announcements? Trying to watch the movie? Too bad! Trying to catch a couple hours of sleep since you had to wake up at 5:45 AM to get on this flight? Wake up! Trying to read? Tough luck – you’re not reading anything until I’m done talking!

The sleep thing is the real kicker for me. It’s hard enough to fall asleep on a plane, so I really don’t want to be woken up for no reason.

With that mini-rant out of the way: Are there folks out there that look forward to pilot public addresses? When you hear the loud speakers crackling into action, do you get excited to hear what interesting fact is about to come? Or are you like me? (I am in awe of pilots’ skills, and I respect the occupation much. Just shut the hell up, though!)

Stories and anecdotes and (of course) pilots’ thoughts are encouraged, but let’s also make a poll out of this. Begin your post with “-1”, “0”, or “+1” if you:

-1: would rather announcements were limited to essential ones;
0: don’t really care;
+1: like such announcements;

I’ll summarize the results if the thread gets active.

2

0 - don’t care.

3

Bedside manner.

Most of the pilots don’t care, and most of the passengers don’t care either, but a good pilot knows that the right dulcet tones can a)calm the nerves of those scared of flying, and b) make most of the rest of the people feel less like a number.

“We’ll… aaah… shorrrrtleeee be landiinnng in a ballll of flaaaammme and spaaaarkssss… this is quiiiite normal…”

4

I don’t fly that often, so perhaps I listen to them a little more (unless I’m out on Xanax). I think they’re for the less-frequent flyers, really. People (like me) who get the window seat so they can look at stuff when they’re awake.

They can be funny though. The best I’ve ever heard was a flight that I think may have had some significant turbulence, but the landing was like butter. I mean, this guy set a jet airplane down in such a way that the landing gear kissed the ground and then moved in. I have never (in my inexperience) had a landing where I did not feel the wheels hit, other than this one.

PA: “That landing that you didn’t feel was in…”

5

I like to know what time we’ll be arriving at our destination. Particularly if it was a delayed departure.

I have been on flights where not a word was uttered by the plots. To me it seemed less professional.

However, I’d rather hear no PA than an inaudible, mumbled PA.

6

Thanks for the kind words.

Most of us at the other end of the mike don’t much enjoy them either. Each company has procedures on the minimum required announcements. Typical ones are welcome aboard before pushback, somewhere near top of climb to give ETA, and shortly before top of descent with arrival “news”. There is general guidance to avoid interrupting movies where possible, but on airplanes with individual TVs in the seats, most folks have the brain sucker turned on the whole flight.

FAA requires a PA any time the seatbelt sign is switched on. If we don’t do it the Flight Attendants will. Usually better for us to do it as we may have some insight into how long, how bad, etc. Surprisingly, a few percent of the folks on each flight are certain that the seatbelt sign coming on in cruise means near-certain death ahead. Despite the fact they survived the last 20 times it happened to them.

Certain marketing fools retain the belief that pilots can add value to our corporate image with professional PA work. I suspect this stems from hand-written notes they sometimes get from 80 year old women extolling the virtues of that nice Captain Jones on flight 123. It also stems from thinking of radio announcer voices with recording quality mikes in silent studios, not the reality of the people, equipment, & conditions we work under.

Sadly, with the advent of 9/11 security crap, the PA is the only contact I have with the passengers at all. But for that, you might suspect I’m really on the ground someplace, not up there with you. Or perhaps worse yet, that I’d been eliminated in a cost-savings move & HAL was flying.
As a passenger I find my tolerance for the long-winded good ol’ boy (or SWA comedian / FA) is near zero. As a pax I accept that I gotta put up with some of this, but minimize it. As a pilot I’d reduced my PAs from “professional but chatty” to “just the facts, ma’am”.

7

I can take or leave PAs from the pilot. I did appreciate it, though, when I had to fly for several years during the wild card portion of the NFL playoffs and the pilot would get score updates from air traffic control and relay it to us.

8

+1

I love them but then again I am a perpetual flight student myself and I love to look out the window. I also love United flights because they have a channel for their headsets to listen to the same ATC that the pilots are hearing. I try to figure out what states we are passing over plus any landmarks. It is great whe the pilot confirms my guess.

9

+1

If the flight is not absolutely, perfectly, telescope-mirror smooth and I don’t hear periodic announcements from the cockpit I assume that the flight crew are either dead or desperately struggling for control of the plane.

Which is absolutely and entirely irrational, and I freely admit that, but that is the way my demented, ‘oh god please put me down on solid ground safely’ mind works.

10

+1
I’m a slightly nervous flier and I like it when they acknowledge that we’re about to head into turbulence-- I like knowing that this flopping up and down thing wasn’t a surprise to anyone. I am also a window-user and I like to know that that’s Mount Seymour or Duluth or whatever. I also like it when they say we have a tailwind and will be in early.

11

-1

Would be a 0 if they didn’t crank the thing up to 11 and blasted my ear drums.

12

0

In general I don’t really mind them, but I do wish certain pilots would refrain from drawing them out. You know, the announcements where there’s a pause every 2-3 words, as though the guy’s reading from a script and repeatedly losing his place. Or when he has a couple of things to say and there’s a minute-long pause in between. I’ve flown with some folks who I would have loved to send to Toastmasters. :wink:

13

I like them. I fly cross-country every 5 to 6 weeks these days and most of the time on the western side of the flight, it’s clear visibility. I love picking out natural features, trying to guess the cities and noting on the urban planning. Most of the time I fly Southwest or United so I have the flight plans down. I’ve now moved on to guessing how much time is left in the flight by what I’m looking at down on the ground. Pilot PAs always give me new ways to entertain myself.

Plus, I find that it’s generally good bedside manner. I was flying out of Boston yesterday and the pilots put a smile on my face. Not only did the b*stard have THE most adorable Boston accent that reminded me of home (when I was growing up there it sounded harsh and annoying, now I’m all nostalgic for it) but provided a soothing string of commentaries on the constant and horrible turbulence we had over parts of the country. I noticed the praying that was going on next to me by a nervous nellie got a lot better.

I will admit that I myself am not/was not the most enthusiastic flyer but I have to give a LOT of credit to Broomstick and LSLGuy on here for making me feel so much better about the process. Broomstick in particular made me feel a lot better about the sharpness of the turns taken, though I still can’t look out the window when they make those without feeling queasy.

Hell, other than takeoffs, I’m actually starting to like flying.

14

Heh, if you knew more about flying, it would be the landings you’d fear! :smiley:

15

+1
I don’t watch the movie, so I don’t mind it being interrupted. I also like to look out the window, so like being reminded of truly interesting stuff below - not too often, though. I haven’t felt there have been too many announcements for a long time.

I also appreciate advance warning of turbulence, so I can drink up faster, and not worry about spilling. I like advance notice of the seatbelt sign also, since some people need to make a potty run.

Finally, I miss the connecting gate announcements, which seem rarer. If I am making a conncection, I like to know if I’m going 100 feet away or to the other side of the airport.

16

I like these, too, especially when I might be the only one making a connection to an obscure airport…then I feel like the announcement is personalized :slight_smile:

My suspicion is that these generally run now only on flights to major hub airports, like Atlanta or Chicago. Almost no one connects through second-string airports like Raleigh-Durham or Syracuse, so there are usually not announcements going into those places.

17

-1.

I hate them. I usually fly US air and in addition to the usual takeoff announcements, you also get to hear all about the Visa card they’re pushing and Dividend Miles club. STFU! I really love when you’re 10 minutes from landing and they read off every single connecting flight and what gate they’re leaving from. Um, that’s what the TVs are for or someone can ask. What I can’t stand is the grating, piercing, low quality speakers that the announcements come over.

18

I’m going to take 2 votes here.

0 for the bland, here’s your information announcements.

+1 if they’re done with some levity and personality

19

I like them when I can hear/understand them. I have the same issues regarding the pilots who can’t talk - say something or don’t; just pick one.

But I have an additional, really stupid question for the pilots amongst us.

My rural, childhood home is several miles under and hundreds of ground miles away from the flightpath of MSP. When I was a kid I could easily pick out the red tails of NWA planes. If I wanted to ask the pilot to announce when he was flying over the coordinates of the place, would he or she? How would I go about putting the request? I’ve always been tempted to ask the flight attendents but thought it would be stupid. Since I’ll make only one more trip back there (one last funeral, sadly) I’m wondering if this is a possibility.

20

I only have a Private ticket, so I can only speak to hearing the announcements from the cockpit. I’d like to hear our position, but I seldom hear such announcements. Actually, I seldom head any of the announcements because I tend to sleep through most of the flight. One of these days I’ll take some sectionals and an E6B along so I can practice pilotage along the way.