Besides making the airport more pleasant, targeting announcements to the relevant travelers also means they are much more likely to be heard. When 99% of announcements are irrelevant, we just mentally screen them out.
I had this experience starting a new company recently.
Every single SaaS product seemed to have a dozen onboarding floating modals that need to be dismissed. It would have been impossible to read them all. In most cases I had used the product a lot before but I simply had a new corporate email so they thought I was a new user.
So if any said anything important I wouldn’t know because I had to dismiss them all.
I had to sleep overnight in the phoenix airport once. All night long a loud speaker was repeating at high volume "Caution: the moving walkway is coming to an end." I remember wishing that it would indeed come to an end.
This is a nice idea. I don't remember the last time I walked through an airport without noise cancelling earbuds and my own music playing. The noise level definitely adds to the stress if you are a frequent traveler.
Burbank Airport used to get recognizable celebrities to record the canned public announcements in their own style. I seem to recall Joan Rivers, Henny Youngman, Jerry Seinfeld, etc. It took some of the edge off while you waited around, at least for a bit. Don't know if this continues.
I wish they would do this when you're boarding the plane. I get that there is essential information that everyone needs to know, but if you're a frequent flier you've probably heard the "put your larger carry-on in the overhead bin and your smaller bag underneath the seat in front of you" hundreds, if not thousands of times.
There's a large subpopulation of people flying who seem to have no idea how planes and airports work. Maybe they're sleep deprived or it's their first time flying, but these announcements are targeted at them.
Unfortunately there's also a large subpopulation of people flying who wear noise-cancelling headphones and have their eyes glued to their phones; choosing to be disengaged from their immediate surroundings.
I think its more likely that the people do know they just don't care and it helps them to put their backpack overhead so they do it anyways. There is minimal/no enforcement.
I'm very much a we-live-in-a-society, follow the rules kind of guy, but if I checked a bag and only have my backpack in the cabin, you bet your ass I'm going to try and find a place for it in the overhead instead of cluttering up where I want to put my feet. The flight attendants can go scold the passenger with the oversized roller + backpack + 20 liter "purse" instead.
Especially flying with kids at naptime or bedtime. Trying to get an extremely tired toddler to fall asleep on a plane just to hear an announcement about in flight entertainment. OMG.
It's not just announcements. SLC (at least) used to have TVs playing the "Airport Channel". Last time I went through there (and maybe the time before?), they were gone. It makes a big difference. You still have announcements, but at least the announcements aren't cutting through some TV noise that you don't care about that is always there.
Besides making the airport more pleasant, targeting announcements to the relevant travelers also means they are much more likely to be heard. When 99% of announcements are irrelevant, we just mentally screen them out.
I didn't realise that "quiet airport" still means there are targeted announcements
I had this experience starting a new company recently.
Every single SaaS product seemed to have a dozen onboarding floating modals that need to be dismissed. It would have been impossible to read them all. In most cases I had used the product a lot before but I simply had a new corporate email so they thought I was a new user.
So if any said anything important I wouldn’t know because I had to dismiss them all.
I had to sleep overnight in the phoenix airport once. All night long a loud speaker was repeating at high volume "Caution: the moving walkway is coming to an end." I remember wishing that it would indeed come to an end.
Hit the E-stop button next time. The belt will stop and won't get restarted until the morning when a maintenance guy comes around.
No materials on the escalator
The white zone is for loading and unloading only. There is no stopping in the red zone.
The red zone is for loading and unloading only. There is no stopping in the white zone.
This is a nice idea. I don't remember the last time I walked through an airport without noise cancelling earbuds and my own music playing. The noise level definitely adds to the stress if you are a frequent traveler.
This is my current favorite airport album. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orph%C3%A9e_(album)
Burbank Airport used to get recognizable celebrities to record the canned public announcements in their own style. I seem to recall Joan Rivers, Henny Youngman, Jerry Seinfeld, etc. It took some of the edge off while you waited around, at least for a bit. Don't know if this continues.
Not exactly the same thing, but I was flying from SFO to the east coast and this stood out to me:
At SFO: "Welcome to San Francisco! Please feel free to relax in our yoga and meditation rooms."
At DTW: "Welcome to Detroit. Remember to cover your face when you sneeze."
Totally different vibes.
I always like the differences in the ads.
SFO: "Use our AI startup!"
DCA: "Buy our warship!"
But how am I going to know the white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the red zone. ?
The red zone has always been for loading and unloading of passengers. There's never stopping in a white zone.
I wish they would do this when you're boarding the plane. I get that there is essential information that everyone needs to know, but if you're a frequent flier you've probably heard the "put your larger carry-on in the overhead bin and your smaller bag underneath the seat in front of you" hundreds, if not thousands of times.
There's a large subpopulation of people flying who seem to have no idea how planes and airports work. Maybe they're sleep deprived or it's their first time flying, but these announcements are targeted at them.
Unfortunately there's also a large subpopulation of people flying who wear noise-cancelling headphones and have their eyes glued to their phones; choosing to be disengaged from their immediate surroundings.
I think its more likely that the people do know they just don't care and it helps them to put their backpack overhead so they do it anyways. There is minimal/no enforcement.
I'm very much a we-live-in-a-society, follow the rules kind of guy, but if I checked a bag and only have my backpack in the cabin, you bet your ass I'm going to try and find a place for it in the overhead instead of cluttering up where I want to put my feet. The flight attendants can go scold the passenger with the oversized roller + backpack + 20 liter "purse" instead.
Much much worse are the repeated advertisement “announcements” about signing up for their credit card or frequent flyer program
There is a large and growing population of people leaving their home country for the first time ever, let alone by plane.
Especially flying with kids at naptime or bedtime. Trying to get an extremely tired toddler to fall asleep on a plane just to hear an announcement about in flight entertainment. OMG.
There is apparently 10000 people every day who learn about it for the first time, according to https://xkcd.com/1053/
My home airport. I can confirm that this is a (relatively) quiet airport. I wish they had a meditation space. Knowing SF, it's probably coming.
There are Yoga rooms in terminals 1, 2, and 3
There is the Berman Reflection Room at SFO.
Has anyone actually heard Eno at the airport? What is it like? Does it actually calm you?
No, but I’ve heard Aphex Twin in an aquarium once. Bristol (UK) for anyone interested, which fits.
I was hoping to see discussion of this - to my knowledge it was sold to a few airports who removed it after it was poorly received: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twentieth-century-mu...
Personally 1/1 has been absolutely sublime for me as a tool for meditation, but I don't know that I could imagine it in an airport.
The Calgary and Edmonton airports are also like this, and I agree that it makes being in the airport so much more pleasant.
(I think that all the Canadian airports might be similarly quiet, but I haven't flown through them recently so I'm not entirely sure)
I strongly recommend the Dawson City airport because they don't have security. The whole experience is much more pleasant.
All of New Zealand does this internally. You only need to go through security for international flights. You can show up 5 minutes before the flight.
I'd love to also have a low smell airport.
So many airports direct passenger flow through a shopping zone drenched in perfume fumes. Disgusting as far as I'm concerned.
Not to mention the screaming visual pollution of course.
It's not just announcements. SLC (at least) used to have TVs playing the "Airport Channel". Last time I went through there (and maybe the time before?), they were gone. It makes a big difference. You still have announcements, but at least the announcements aren't cutting through some TV noise that you don't care about that is always there.
Title: San Francisco Airport Removed 90 Minutes of Daily Noise — Travelers Say It Changed Everything