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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have this theory that all sorts of stimuli exhaust our nervous system: be it auditory, wind stimulation of skin, shaking or even smells. That's why people get tired flying on airplane, spending a day outside seemingly doing nothing, etc etc
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.
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.
SFO: "Use our AI startup!"
DCA: "Buy our warship!"
This is my current favorite airport album. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orph%C3%A9e_(album)
(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)
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.
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.