Headphones

Hi,

Flying economy with VA for the first time (Manchester to Orlando). Sorry for such a basic question, but are headphones handed out FOC or are they charged for? Tried to search but couldn't find the specific answer.

Thanks
Martin.

[Nottingham Nick]

They are handed out FOC, and are collected at the end of the flight. Sometimes, quite a long time before the end of the flight. [n]

The quality is okay - better than they used to be - but if you have your own good quality ones, then they connect by a standard small jack.

Nick

I always use my mp3 player ones, much comfier.

if you've got a bit of spare cash i would recoomend buying you own noise cancelling headphones there not that expensive and can make alot of difference in flight as you can hear more clearly and they are more comfortable

Even if you are travelling "up front" in Upper Class [certainly on a LGW/MAN aircraft] you get a pretty crappy pair of headphones to use. The headphones provided are not noise cancelling ones like many airlines business classes offer - just a fairly basic pair of normal headphones. My iPod headphones / Sony "in ear" ones were better at cancelling / blocking out the noise.

As has already been said, the Crew collect the headphones when it suits them - which could be close on an hour out of landing. If you have your own pair with you, you can carry on listening until they shut down the IFE for landing.

Originally posted by Kraken
The headphones provided are not noise cancelling ones like many airlines business classes offer - just a fairly basic pair of normal headphones.

In economy they are not. In J they are supposed to be noise cancelling. You get some noise cancelling effect if you can get your finger onto the switch to turn them on, but nothing like the Bose QC2's (handed out by AA for example).

In J they are supposed to be noise cancelling

The headphones we got in UC (from Manchester) had never seen a noise cancelling feature. They were straight from ecconomy.
Agree with you on the AA. Their Bose ones were very good.

The ones I used in UC on the IAD-LHR flight a few weeks back, while not very comfortable, did appear to have some noise reduction.
I did n't really use them much.