Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights • Hacker News Board

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#211

Post by CamJN » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

wanderingstan wrote: post #95

mikkupikku wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America, a small number of people derive pleasure from being disruptive to everybody, and blasting music on public transit with captive audiences is a very "traditional" way of fucking with people and expressing your broad contempt for their society. I'd estimate that maybe one in five times you get on a city bus in America, you'll encounter somebody like this. Very rarely does anybody call them out or otherwise t…

My go-to technique has been to offer the offender a pair of headphones, saying something to insinuate that they must forgotten theirs or be too poor to afford them. Most of the time they say “oh I have headphones!” and then realize that they’ve outed themselves. (I stockpile the free headphones from gyms or airplanes, or get the $2 ones from AliExpress)

But on a plane they'll have already been asked by a flight attendant either by the time the plane takes off, or as soon as it stops climbing. So clearly this isn't working on the people this rule targets. In fact I think this rule is actually the ideal response from the airline and should be adopted everywhere, as anyone who is so unconcerned with the wellbeing of others as to play audio on their device without headphones shouldn't be allowed to fly, as they're obviously happy to fuck up everyone's day, and won't follow instructions.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#212

Post by etrautmann » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #188

NikolaNovak wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am astonished how many people now use speakerphone as their default interaction. On subway, go train, in grocery stores, on the streets, sometimes even in the office, they blast their conversations with zero care. And so yes, I've definitely seen and experienced people watching inane tiktoks on speaker in subway or bus or airplane. It's the epitome of complete lack of empathy or self awareness to me, but I guess th…

I've seen it everywhere except airplanes. I don't recall ever seeing it on planes. How often have you seen that? Do passengers or flight attendants do anything? How does the person respond?

Kids playing games is the truly annoying one. You feel terrible saying anything but it’s also some of the most annoying sounds.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#213

Post by MiddleEndian » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

verdverm wrote: post #88

An app you can use to play back their audio on a short delay that messes with the brain https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu

Pretty sweet. Do you have it hosted anywhere? Seems github doesn't want to let you load HTML directly (for obvious reasons lol)

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#214

Post by CamJN » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:24 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #178

_se wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually it's because the kid won't wear headphones. Not really an excuse, but a lot of the time the kid is just going to do what they want. What the parents should do in that situation is make them watch without sound, but that's harder than the alternative, so they just do whatever.

Or the parent should just take the phone away! If the kid won't listen to it quietly then they should do that thing that I believe is called "parenting". Bring a picture book or something for them if they need to be entertained without the phone. This was done by my parents when I was a young kid. I wouldn't turn the volume down on my Game Boy on a flight, so my parents took it away from me until I promised to keep t…

I've been on a flight where a set of parents took away their child's tablet, not for being noisy but as punishment for some other bad behaviour. What resulted was 6 hours of a child screaming on an 8 hour flight. Aside from wanting to punt the little shit out the door, I was almost impressed at the kid not giving up after a few minutes, and then hours when nothing changed.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#215

Post by etrautmann » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:24 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #140

sowbug wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another angle is kids who have been given a tablet as a pacifier. Their parents are often on autopilot, having checked out months or years earlier. On topic (and discussed already on HN): https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu

When young children are on airplanes you cheat in whatever way you can.

I have a three year old and would still never subject others to tablet noise. Yes they’re the literal worst to fly with but don’t export your misery to others.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#216

Post by akudha » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:29 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #31

Is this really a thing?!? Blasting the others with unwanted noise. I never been in a flight, or train across Europe where passengers showed just lack of respect for the others. The only ones pumping anything loud, on trains or busses, usually get quickly pointed down by other passengers, personal or security. Ah, and then there are the rebellious kids or gangs, as the other exception, which usually don't take flights…

I have been in flights, elevators (not joking), coffee shops where people were listening to music or were on phone calls, on speaker.

There are some weirdos amongst us. There were a handful of reports of people singing religious music, in planes while on flight. I haven’t had the pleasure of listening to this, thankfully

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#217

Post by sowbug » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:32 PM UTC

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #156

sowbug wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another angle is kids who have been given a tablet as a pacifier. Their parents are often on autopilot, having checked out months or years earlier. On topic (and discussed already on HN): https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu

[flagged]

That's rather defeatist. Surely you believe there are other options.

We traveled with a single Nexus 7 and one pair of headphones shared by three kids. Having to take turns taught them to be OK with having entertainment, being a spectator, or being bored. And they understood that if we ever heard it, they'd all have to be bored for a while.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#218

Post by tzs » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #74

pjmlp wrote: post #31

Is this really a thing?!? Blasting the others with unwanted noise. I never been in a flight, or train across Europe where passengers showed just lack of respect for the others. The only ones pumping anything loud, on trains or busses, usually get quickly pointed down by other passengers, personal or security. Ah, and then there are the rebellious kids or gangs, as the other exception, which usually don't take flights…

I am astonished how many people now use speakerphone as their default interaction. On subway, go train, in grocery stores, on the streets, sometimes even in the office, they blast their conversations with zero care. And so yes, I've definitely seen and experienced people watching inane tiktoks on speaker in subway or bus or airplane. It's the epitome of complete lack of empathy or self awareness to me, but I guess th…

I'm curious what people think of people who use their speakerphone in public, but have the volume set low enough and themselves speak low enough that the conversation is no louder than an in person conversation would be.

Still annoying?

If so, is the problem usually the loudness of the speakerphone, or the loudness of the person who is there? I've noticed some people talk louder when on speakerphone than when on regular phone (and some people talk louder on regular phone than when talking to someone in person).

Back before mobile phones there was a tendency for people to talk louder on the phone at first, but after being reminded a few times that just because the other person is far away doesn't mean you have to shout most people learned to talk at normal volume.

I wonder if loud talkers don't get that feedback now? With old phone handsets there was pretty much only one position for them, so the mic was about the same distance from the mouth for all speakers. Talk to loud and it would be annoying on the receiving end.

But with modern phones there are a variety of positions people hold them in, which can lead to quite different mic positions. My understanding is that they do a lot more automatic gain control and other processing to try to keep the level the same despite all those different positions. Perhaps this means that the person on the other end doesn't know you are talking loud and so unless someone on your end tells you to keep it down you might never realize you are a loud phone talker.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#219

Post by sowbug » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #118

sowbug wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another angle is kids who have been given a tablet as a pacifier. Their parents are often on autopilot, having checked out months or years earlier. On topic (and discussed already on HN): https://github.com/Pankajtanwarbanna/stfu

I'm not a fan of the tablet as a pacifier approach but it's not my business. What is my business is when the parents do so without providing a way for the child to indulge without annoying everybody else. I consider that to be absolutely unacceptable in that if they can afford a tablet they can afford cheap headphones.

Yes, only the open-air noise-making kind (per the article topic). Don't care what the rectangle is as long as we can't hear it.

Re: Passengers who refuse to use headphones can now be kicked off United flights

#220

Post by tzs » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 9:55 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #82

NikolaNovak wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am astonished how many people now use speakerphone as their default interaction. On subway, go train, in grocery stores, on the streets, sometimes even in the office, they blast their conversations with zero care. And so yes, I've definitely seen and experienced people watching inane tiktoks on speaker in subway or bus or airplane. It's the epitome of complete lack of empathy or self awareness to me, but I guess th…

Phone makers deleted the speaker is the ‘courage’ I want.

Speaker phone is probably necessary nowadays since many people only have a smartphone.

With the old phones you could reasonably tilt your head and raise your shoulder to hold the handset in place so you could do something that required two hands while talking/listening, like looking up something in a book or taking notes.

Smartphones are smaller than the old handsets and much flatter. I can pinch mine between my shoulder and head but I've got to raise my should pretty high and do some other contortions to get my head tilted enough making it much more awkward to do anything with my hands. Also that phone is small enough that it is pretty well covered in that position by the side of my face and my shoulder, so I'm not sure the mic could pick up much.