San Francisco is a ‘quiet airport.’ They limit announcements, background noise and marketing. It’s been that was since 2018, and during Covid they used some of the downtime to push the project forward.
The airport targeted gate announcements, overlapping PA messages, and tenant music. Instead of blasting departure calls terminal-wide, messages are limited to each gate and their immediate surroundings. In 2020, they worked with airlines to centralize and reduce announcements, cutting 40% of the paging.
They claim that just in the International Terminal they’ve eliminated over 90 minutes of unnecessary announcements a day. Now they’re working to reduce noise emanating from escalators and moving walkways.
United Airlines at SFO
Amsterdam Schiphol has had a similar “silent airport” initiative since at least 2011, with announcements mostly confined to essential information. Some terminals at Singapore Changi and Zurich have taken similar approaches. But they’re the first in the U.S. though some have quiet rooms and others have reduced noise near gates.
Amsterdam Schipol Airport
Background noise is mentally exhausting, especially for long layovers or early-morning flights. Quiet reduces stress. I’m not a fan of airport music programs, myself, such as in my home airport in Austin.
And here’s Houston Hobby, at least the music is reasonably calming rather than too loud.
Advocates have argued the quiet is more inclusive, helping neurodivergent travelers and those sensitive to sensory overload, although at the same time visually impaired passengers may rely on audible alerts.
Most travelers now get notifications via mobile apps, email, text, and digital gate boards. Announcements may be unnecessary – except for travelers who don’t know to be looking, such as for a gate change or when a specific person is being paged. Overall travelers seem to prefer the quiet though.
Should more airports move to this approach?
SFO is an excellent airport imo. Reduced noise makes travel way less stressful as opposed to cattle calls at the ends of gates like at LAX or MSP.
Love it! Reducing stress with unnecessary noise is great. Now if they could just get the TSA to cut back on their frequent mindlessly repeating “in the interest…” Their “dangerous objects” is like they are talking to children anyway. Incidentally my home airport of MSP has another nice stress reliever, friendly retriever dogs often available for anyone who wants to pet and play with them.
What travelers say it ‘changed everything’?
Fewer announcements make it easier to take business calls, I’ll give it that. Though it’s gate announcements that tend to be the most loud and likely to interrupt a call.
As an SFO based flyer, the airport environment is quite peaceful. Especially in terminal 1 and 2. It just makes sense….
Now if there were better configured runways and no fog……it would be the top airport in the nation overall. Despite what the rest of SF is looking like these days.
Most of my flights go through Amsterdam and it’s always jarring at other airports that are obnoxiously noisy. I forget that Amsterdam is the unusual one.
Love it. I couldn’t find a single quiet corner in all of JFK T7 last fall for a phone call while departing intl in Mint. Between music and announcements, it sucked. The soon to open lounge will help.
I love this and wish it was extended to other aspects of life. We have a huge noise pollution problem that is so insidious most people don’t even realize it.
A big “uh yup!”
I’d love to see this become common. Gates at ORD (just one example) have gotten so noisy with TV, PA, gate announcements, and the ever helpful TSA announcements, that it’s almost impossible to read or work. It’s gotten to the point that I carry eat plugs when I travel, and I’m thinking of buying NC headphones.
TSA endless repeating personal belonging is the most annoying message in the airport, purely boosting blood pressure.