The Airlines are Trying to Make People Deaf

Easy now, big fella

Have you flown lately? I have to head out tomorrow for my regular flight home. If so, did it occur to you just how noisy commercial air travel is?

I have read somewhere that modern commercial jets were left somewhat noisy on purpose -- it keeps down the chit-chat. Pardon the pun, but I think we've gone way overboard here. The flight attendants are turning up the P.A. system on some of these flights to the level that will blow your ears off.

It gets no better in the terminal. Try making a cell call in Atlanta on a busy afternoon. Wherever you sit, you can hear multiple gates all competing with each other in some kind of sonic warfare in which people who aren't flying are easily given up as collateral damage. These guys are as bad as the flight attendants: continuing to turn up and up the P.A. systems in a futile effort to -- do what? Raise the dead? Make announcements to deaf people by means of building vibrations? Practice for the annual Swiss yodeling competition?

I used to wear hearing protection just on flights. Now I'm finding it makes sense to wear it at the terminal as well. Earplugs aren't enough -- if you want real peace you have to use earplugs plus some kind of ANR (Active Noise Reduction) headsets.

what is probably happening is that some of these folks are inadvertently slowly going deaf from many years of using a public address system, and are going to take the rest of us with them, like it or not. I smell class action lawsuit here.

BTW, topping this off are the pilots who come on way too low in the cabin and make some kind of announcement that sounds like a mix between The Oracle and a Listerine Commercial. It usually goes something like "Ladies and Gentlemen (garble) (garble) leaving (garble)(garble) in about 15 miles(garble)(garble) who we always called 'Old Spanky' (garble) (garble) (garble) until the weather changes. Thank you"

Maybe being deaf isn't so bad.