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The Airbus A380 is too quiet Emirates Pilots and Cabin crew complain


Emirates pilots and cabin crews have been complaining that their new Airbus A380 planes are far too quite. Most passengers including myself would consider a quieter aircraft to be a plus, but it seems a quieter aircraft creates other noise issues.

 

The Blog FlightGlobal has reported pilots as saying:

 

 

” the lack of engine noise in the A380's cabin compared with other long-haul airliners means they are constantly disturbed by sounds created by passengers, such as crying babies, flushing vacuum toilets and call bells. Passengers also mistake the rest area for a lavatory, and pull the door handle.”

“The Dubai-based carrier has asked Airbus for a solution that does not involve substantially adding weight, which rules out insulating the walls of the rest area, situated at the rear of the all-economy main deck”, says Emirates senior vice-president, fleet, Capt Ed Davidson.

"We are expecting to hear back from them by the middle of the month," says Davidson, who admits that the airframer has "overdelivered" on its noise promises on the airline's Engine Alliance GP7200-powered A380s. One option could be installing lightweight generators to create ambient noise.”

 

 

 

You see low frequency plane noise (usually wind and engine noise) actually cuts out or makes the higher frequency internal cabin noise (people talking/kids screaming) seem less audible.

 

 

Have you flown on a Emirates, Singapore Airlines or Qantas A380, how was the internal cabin noise? Leave a comment below 

 


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Comments

 

Ted Ray said:

Not many people have flown on this yet, but BizWeek covered this plane recently here: http://tinyurl.com/5pxns2. The perspective here was from passengers, however, and not flight crew

January 2, 2009 10:46 PM
 

vb said:

SQ A380-Complains about how quite! U got to be joking. As a frequent traveller for over 20 years now i had the pleasyre of experiencing the SQ A380 buisness class twice late last year. There is nothing like it. Not only is it very quite you dont experience the "pressure" during decent.

January 23, 2009 4:03 PM
 

St Louis Rams said:

That thing is a monster!!

February 11, 2009 1:48 PM
 

tim said:

add low white noise tracks over the speaker system - a river, ocean, rain, etc. - that's a low cost solution.

March 10, 2009 1:32 PM
 

33 said:

it was realy quite

March 24, 2009 3:01 AM
 

4454 said:

its a huge baby

March 24, 2009 3:07 AM
 

scargo said:

Some low frequency white noise is always good for crowded environments like an aircraft cabin. You don't want your conversation to your neighbour being broadcast across to everyone. People have come up with this idea that silence equals comfort. It doesn't. In fact, in nature there is always some background noise - wind, seas, rivers flowing, birds, etc. We have these new ultra quiet trains where I live which are near silent inside, and I hate traveling on them when they are packed. The atmosphere is so tense as no one wants to talk as everyone will hear. Like travelling in a library.

The A380 is definitely too quiet to the point of being uncomfortable.

August 20, 2009 3:09 AM

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Flying High Media’s principal author and director Ben Hoffman is a technology evangelist and two time recipient of the prestigious Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award in 2006 and 2007, for his contribution to the Microsoft Exchange Server Community.

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