Hearing damage from the cabin after ten years: the engine noise, the galley, the headset on the interphone

Lufthansa purser, six years, and Chris wrote the hearing test for the applicants. This is the other end: the hearing after years in the cabin, because the annual audiometry results drift and the crew who notice at 35 did not know at 25.

What the cabin does to the hearing

The cabin noise on a long haul (the engine, the air conditioning, the galley equipment) is a constant at a level the regulators consider acceptable and the audiologists consider cumulative. The galley on the 747 and the A380 is louder than the cabin. The headset on the interphone and the crew rest's proximity to the engines add to it. Ten years of twelve hour sectors is a specific noise exposure and the audiometry at the annual medical records it.

The results that drift

The annual audiometry (the tones, the headphones, the button) at the AME: the high frequency thresholds drift first, a few decibels a year, and the AME notes it and the crew member does not hear it (literally; the high frequencies are the ones you do not notice losing). By year ten the drift is visible on the chart and the crew who compare the year one and the year ten charts see it. Tinnitus, as Chris said, is common and not a failure and it arrives with the drift.

What the aviation audiologist told me at 30

That the drift is real and the cabin is the cause and the AME standard is lenient enough that the drift will not ground me for decades. That the galley noise is the thing to manage: the crew who stand in the galley for the whole sector lose more than the ones who rotate. That the interphone volume is the thing crew set too high and the headset at full volume for ten years is the thing the audiologist sees. That the earplugs in the crew rest are not optional and the crew who sleep without them next to the engines are the ones with the drift. And that the layover noise (the bars, the concerts the young crew go to) is the controllable part and the cabin is the uncontrollable part.

What the senior crew do

The earplugs in the crew rest, always. The interphone volume at the minimum that works. The galley rotation on the long sectors. The hearing protection at the airport on the apron (the ground crew have it and the cabin crew do not). The annual audiometry taken seriously and the chart kept. And the layover bars avoided, which the no alcohol crew do anyway.

The honest view

The hearing drifts and the job is the reason and the drift will not end the career and it will end the ability to hear the conversation in a loud restaurant at 50. The crew at 25 cannot hear the drift and the audiologist can. The crew who do the five things lose less. Paul's body thread has the back and the sleep and the skin; this is the ears and nobody writes it because nobody can hear it going.

For the year one crew

Earplugs in the crew rest. The interphone at the minimum. Rotate out of the galley. Keep the audiometry chart. The ears are the sense the job takes slowest and most surely.