Emirates A380 pilots find aircraft 'too quiet' to sleep
 

Bet this isn't one Airbus saw coming...

Emirates A380 pilots find aircraft 'too quiet' to sleep

Weary Emirates Airbus A380 pilots are complaining that they cannot sleep in their crew-rest area in the aft main cabin because the aircraft is too quiet.

The pilots say that 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.

"We're getting a lot of complaints. It's not something we expected," says Davidson. "On our other aircraft, the engines drown out the cabin noise. [On the A380] the pilots sleep with earplugs but the cabin noise goes straight through them."

Emirates is the only A380 operator so far to have situated the crew-rest areas at the rear of the main deck. It did not opt for Airbus' standard option of locating the pilots' compartment behind the cockpit as it would have compromised the design of the airline's upper deck first-class cabin, while the alternative location of the cargo hold was rejected as it thought crew would find it "claustrophobic".

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

It just goes to show that you should take the standard production offering. Still, I don't suppose that they'll being needing the rest facilities on the DXB-LHR route!

BA take note.:E

A friend of mine came back from Australia on one, was sitting "top deck" commented that it was like landing in a glider, almost no sound whatsoever...:ok:

I was pasanger on a recent A380 flight. I had a look at the bunks as well.

It is quiet but there is also a problem with the locations of the bunks. they are next to the pasanger seats and toilets in economy. In other plane's crew rest compartiments you enter and climb steps to get to the bunks. In this one the bunks are the same level with the main deck. there is nothing in between apart from the door so you hear everything.

Ear plugs reduce any noise, it is unbeleiveable to hear someone say ear plugs can reduce the engine noise on other large aircraft like the 747 or 777 but cannot reduce noise created in the passenger cabin on an A380.

The noise level in the 747 crew bunk area must be far noiser than any noise in a passenger cabin on any large aircarft.

I often use ear plugs on short and long flights (as a pax) to cut out the din some of the other pax seated near me make especially with young children.

My ear plugs work very well and reduce all noise levels to a very agreeable level including cabin and engine noise. I cannot hear the flight attendands speaking to me with ear plugs in place.

Perhaps they should try out some different types of ear plugs.

Jean-Lill,
Humans are funny creatures.
A bit of steady, expected, background noise will send you right to sleep.
No noise, OK, but then every door banging, or kid crying, or whatever, will wake you up (or stop you from going to sleep).

Ear plugs work only so far.
Your ears work like your eyes... they adjust to huge differences in level of intensity.
Really dead silence.... your earplugs won't stop the buzz of a mosquito.

CJ

Engine sound simulator
 

It's quite simple: Emirates could buy and install a continuos engine noise simulator (it could be a loudspeaker mounted in the top of bunk) that continuosly reproduce the aircraft engine noise.
I think no more weight is added, low cost solution, no certification needed:ok::ok::ok:

Good rest guys!!!!

I recall the 'old' Raffles hotel in Singapore had personal air conditioners in each room, which were very noisy, like having your own Pratt & Witney next to you, kept all other noise out and one could sleep well, trouble was when it stopped ! One woke up with a start. The trick was to make sure it was programmed to run continuously - and sleep in a fur coat !

or just buy an iPod with a white noise mp3 and external noise cancelling headphones?

Having just flown to and from Singapore/LHR on an A380 I would confirm the low noise level, almost uncanny, especially upon take-off but also noticeably low in the cruise. Rather odd actually...the aircraft seemed peculiarly characterless apart from its stunning take-off performance on full tanks - in contrast a 747-400's takeoff run always feels as if you might be going by road...

Probably the very first Marriott motel/hotel was a mile or so off the north end of Washington National Airport DCA. They immediately had airplane noise complaints from the guests. An acoustical consultant was called in. The solution was to make the continuously-running air conditioning vents more noisy - white noise. That solved the problem.

How do you sleep with that nonsense on? Do you only sleep lying on your back? Have you tried sleeping with noise cancelling headphones?

Gents, don't waste your time giving this article the credit to discuss its contents as though it is serious - it's SPIN, pure and simple, from the EK spin machine.

The fact, pure and simple, is that the EK crew rest area on the A380 has been placed in about the most inappropriate position one could imagne - smack bang in the middle of the economy cabin.

It should never have been placed there, but like the very aptly nicknaned 'aft torpedo tube' crew rest area in the EK 777s (as far from the cockpit as it possibly could be while staying inside the pressure hull), commercial department overrode flight ops (not that that would have been much of a bump!!!) and quite simply allowed their perception of what crews require as an absolute minimum for rest rather than accept the standard Boeing/Airbus fitment.

Both fitments are an unmitigated disaster, but 'face' (as in not losing any) demands that they be made work and crews be made to accept them (along with the business class 'rest' for pilots in the ULH aircraft EK bought [can you believe it?!!] without a crew rest area fitted).

Spin. S. P. I. N. Spin.

MTOW,
Somehow I don't believe it's all spin....

As I said, us humans are funny creatures.

A bit of steady background noise (whether music or white noise or pink noise, or just a bit of engine noise) will blank out all the other 'interference'.

Your mind drifts off to "did they really synchronize engine four properly" and next thing you're asleep.

No background noise? Every noise like a banging door is an intrusion that will stop you from going to sleep, or have you wide awake again.

CJ

I don't disagree with your comments. CJ. Most people who've tried to sleep in a crew hotel during the day have learned that leaving a radio on at low volume blanks out most of the banging and crashing of the cleaning staff.

However, where the spin comes in is that if the crew rest was where it should be - where the aircraft designers put it - the noise outside wouldn't be a problem, or at least nearly as big a problem as it is in the middle of the Economy cabin.

In the crew rest area behind the flight deck on the B744 a lot of the noise is aerodynamic combined with conditioned air flow noise and therefore steady.
Agree 100% with ChristiaanJ, steady noise not a problem, intermittent noise varying in type and volume is a disaster for anyone trying to sleep. Ear plugs that are so good they can keep all noise out won't allow fire and smoke alarm noises to be heard either, (pertinent to Hotels rather than aircraft!).

This wont be a problem at Buster Airlines! I'll have no sleeping on the job thank you very much!!!:= Paid to fly & fly you will! Crew rest area is in the Hotel, full stop!

:p:ouch::suspect:

EK is so awfully kind:

Just look at a EK777 flying coffin in the rear and recite the above bulls**t.
I bet my next years bonus the Talking Horse has never set his nostrils into that torture bunk. You CAN'T sit up, you CAN't strech, you CAN't watch a movie, you CAN't eat, it's smaller than a Tokyo coffin hotel, you are confined to lie there for sometimes 7 hours, NO seat to sit or eat or relax and for human needs you have to huddle though 10 other bunk-corridor just to end up waiting in front of the only 2+1 toilets for you and 300 Y passengers. All this in a provided pyjama which would grant immediate access to any gay parade.:yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yu k::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk:

Just out of curiosity where are the sleep quarters located on SQ or QF?

Dont want the aussies complaining do we!!! They have enough to contend with, with the BA merger possibility

I guess one of the worst parts is waiting to walk up to flight deck after rest. Eg Last ULR fight. After resting etc I went to the cabin only to find the cc doing their duties and serving the pax. However it then becomes a battle to get to the front of the aircraft where you need to be. Sure you can tell the cc to remove the carts, but I am sure they do this continally for resting crew already and it does not help the crew cohesion. They then think we are pr...s and not interested in waiting. It all ends up worse than if we just went with the aircraft designers and had the bunks where they are supposed to be.:ugh:

EK does flights with 1 Capt and 2 FOs with the same set up. With earplugs or ipods shielding the skipper completely from what is going on, just imagine the poor guy sleeping through an emergency in economy and bearing all the responsibility. It wouldn’t help him hearing anything anyway, because with panicking passengers and crew, the trolleys well stuck between rows, he will never make up the 100 meters to the cockpit anyway.
Nice job EK, safety first as you always pretend.

I see censorships alive and well, I made a perfectly valid comment about a pink noise generator which is a device that is used to assist people in sleeping, and it's been deleted. The Ipod suggestion remains why is that?.

Found this seatplan on wikipedia. Just out of interest, where would that crewrest be situated? Or somenone has a current seatplan of EK?

The Qantas crew rests on the 744 are located in the cockpit behind a curtain and at the rear of the upper deck behind a door beside the galley, easy access to food and the toilet! :ok:The QF/BA merger is another story that I definately won't be losing sleep over...

check this out:


Emirates - A380 - Seatplans.com

Aearo E.A.R' "Classic" ear plugs highly recommended!:zzz:

Is it the white rectangle without any pictogram in the aft part of the lower deck, below the galley/toilet block on the upper deck?

Extract from hastily amended Boeing 747-8i brochure:

". . and a further advantage, compared to our larger and uglier competitor, is the carefully modulated and optimised aerodynamic white noise designed to be just sufficient to blank out unwanted sounds and ensure a deep, refreshing sleep for passengers and resting crew alike . . . "
:ok:

Not the best plan to have the crew rest area a long way from the flightdeck really, amazing that the certification people don't insist on it being within spitting distance really.

Why? They are off duty. there is a full complement of other crew in charge....

There are multiple incidents that were avoided becoming accidents when resting crew/supernumerary crew/able bodies (travelling crew) were able to help up front (eg. Sioux City). some airlines want their seat position as to be able to identify them. Smart move.
EK decided to go the other way, to dump them as far away from the cockpit as possible, even when it means doing this with the only Captain on board. Silly move.
I go with the remark that it dazzles me that regulators worldwide just swallow this uneccessary move.

LOL... They definitley all have better rest areas than NWA. I remember when I was coming back from Detroit to Japan this year i looked behind me to see a pilot sitting all dressed in uniform. I wasn't sure if he would be flying later or not but i'd glance every so often to see him awake. Anyway i dosed and when i woke up later he wasn't there anymore. Infact he wasn't there for several hours, until the next morning when i saw him sitting back down behind me. Scry stuff too, to think he had just been flying the plane he was asleep in no less than five minutes.

point of information: uniformed pilots in the passenger cabin are going to be sleeping. Often they'll get seated by the Frequent Travelers in the hope that said folks realize this basic biological fact more than the people in scheduling.

At least, that's my experience on the short hauls. Gotta say, EK is pretty impressive in this one. So do they put positioning flight crew in Y class as well? Strikes me that would be something of an upgrade.

Think I may have solved EK's problems with the ''too quiet to sleep A380''.

Having just flown LHR - DXB with EK, seated in the rear row of business, I can totally confirm there is no hint of the claimed quiet calm silence anywhere near THAT area due to the positioning of the lounge bar - quite possibly the most noisy and uncomfortable 7 hour sector for a very long time! If you are hoping for sleep on your flight, avoid the last 5 rows of EK's 380 business cabin at all costs.

With EK's gravitation toward business class crew rest, all they need to do is assign those seats to resting crew, and hey presto, instantly no more problems with low noise levels..............

I think a lot of people inclusive airline mangers miss the point completely.

Inflight rest is a legal requirement on longhaul flights. It is illegal to fly fatigued, meaning unrested. If a very high percentage of crew report unable to get rest, where does the legislator put airline management when they can get away by simply pretending they consider the rest facility adequate? Are they above the law? Who is entitled to determine the quest by the victims? The legislator, management or the victims? Is there a body that would inquire on that, or is it entirely left to the airlines? If so, where does that put the legislator other than being a fig leaf? A crew en route is caught in the act and cannot pledge fatigued and sit back, unless they put the same strain on their colleagues. They must be able to contest a solution that is inadequate, but today they can’t!

Cockpit access is legally to be restricted to a minimum. With bunks outside of it, this means at least 8 unnecessary openings, easily detectable by bad elements, as each time a pilot passes through the whole cabin, he will be accessing the cockpit very soon. They are nicely marked by either their uniform or their ridiculous pyjamas. This basically runs against safety regulations, as the original bunk solution would avoid it entirely. Any regulator to elaborate on this? Have they even thought about this?

Paying a lot of money, the F and C-class passengers certainly don’t like to be disturbed by the coming and going of crew. In C and Y-class these some 800 meters by cockpit crew per flight are a constant annoyance for the cabin crew, as most of the time they are in the cabin with the trolleys. All this would have been avoided with the original bunk solution. What do passenger service gurus think about this?

The confining of the resting tech crew into the a.. of the aircraft also works against emergency situations. Imagine such a situation with the resting colleagues adjacent to the cockpit and the working PIC would NOT call them for assistance and ending in big trouble. He would be heavily bashed for not working according best practice and optimum use of resources, as lost over the oceans and deserts every hand comes in great when in trouble. Would anyone bash a company for providing rest facilities that hinder such assistance and might end up in a worse situation?

The AOM obliges the Captain to occupy his seat under “certain emergencies”. If he operates with two FOs, what does the regulator say? Is this article of the AOM void, just because an airline chose to put up the resting skipper in a place he will not be able to leave in “certain emergencies”? Would this captain be let off the hook if a decision of his replacing FO-PIC proves wrong and causes havoc? Can you make a FO fully accountable? Are they fully trained for that? Can you make the company accountable for a incident happening due to inadequate rest facility? Or does the Captain remain the one and only being accountable? Has anyone, any serious regulator though about this?

It strikes me that if a crew is not rested and fatigued, he is basically illegal. If a captain is not in his seat during “certain emergencies”, he is illegal. But if these crew criticize the layout of the rest facilities, making them fatigued and unable to access their required seat, they face complete disregard from the company. Where does that leave them?

Perhaps there was a contest with Emirates management to set their A380 fleet apart from others and find the least suitable spot within pressurized area....

Too bad Airbus gave in those odd wishes (shouldn't have supported this "solution"), but on the other hand the customer is king.

EK Crew Rest
 

I'ld wage a few dirhams that the regulator just kept his head in the sand.

Flight Crew rest to be at the furtherest end of the A/C from the flight deck. Sounds like a Irish joke.

This is unbelievable.

All it's going to take is something like a decompression with the designated Commander of the aircraft stuck down the back of that massive cabin on oxygen, and then perhaps unable to get through carts, rubber jungle etc, for maybe 10-15 minutes. Or even longer. Or even at all....... A serious inflight fire doesn't even bear thinking about. Then the questions will be asked. The litigation will be ruthless. EK, Airbus and "the regulator" (what ever that means in the UAE) will be seriously on the back foot.

How can those parties have pushed for and allowed such a latent safety flaw? Have they no concept of the noose they are sticking their heads through and how tight it'll feel if there is a disaster?

They will be in the courts for years. Prosecutor: "Why exactly did you either design, or approve the design of this aircraft, whereby the CAPTAIN couldn't get back to the flight-deck before it crashed?"

What century is this, exactly?