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.
Absolutely yes.
And all airports should have carpeting like Changi (the world’s best airport) does, as it reduces the noise dramatically. Of course it’s more expensive than the industrial cement flooring typical of US airports.
What about the silly and endless TSA announcements telling you what you can bring through security AFTER you’ve gone through security? It’s pure noise pollution, it trains people to ignore announcements, and there is no good argument that such announcements are essential – after all, they do not play in the lounges, and if lounge passengers, don’t have to hear them, everybody else shouldn’t have to either.
@Mary, Carpet is cheaper than the terrazo most US airports have switched to. The problem is it has to be replaced much more often. DEN is a good example, there’s still 30 yr old terrazzo in the center atriums and bathroom areas but the carpets have obviously been changed out many times.
SFO is my home airport, frequently in Zurich, and I love the quiet. Thanks for highlighting these “best practices”, Gary!
I vote Gary Leff’s voice to make all airport announcements. That will surely calm everyone down.
Changes everything? Hardly. Click bait headline. I have flown out of SFO for 26 years. Noise and announcements have never been a problem.
SFO is my home airport as well, and I love the silence. There are messages boards posted throughout the airport (e.g.: “Mr.John Doe, please dial ‘6’ on a white courtesy telephone for an important message”), but the only problem is that one has to actually look at them. However, I can finally understand the gate agents when making an announcement, and IMHO the silence makes everyone more relaxed and less stressed. At least that’s been my experience.
The only people who seem stressed are people who don’t know that SFO is a “silent” airport, and come racing up to the gate from a restaurant or a bar or a shop of some sort after the boarding door has closed angrily shouting at the agent, “But we never heard the announcement.” Well, duh….
So woke. Noise is good and healthy for you
Related…has anyone tried to do work at a Starbucks lately? The muzak is often so loud that you can neither think very well nor certainly have a business call/zoom.
Nobody listens to the announcements anyways and I’m convinced the airline employees – especially at Southwest – just love hearing the sound of their own voices. The whole airport does not need to know about boarding beginning for a single flight, let alone hundreds of them. And little Johnny who hasn’t boarded his flight isn’t going to magically appear just because of some final boarding call. Make every airport quiet like SFO.
The thing that really bothers is me is many US airports have repeated announcements from the mayor, or another elected official. This is extremely annoying and I do not see how it helps anyone other than the politician. It bothers me how many airports that it has spread to across the U.S.
This is one of the many reasons I choose SFO over OAK. The rental car situation needs improvement though.