[oliveshell]

If Delta is really serious about customer satisfaction, they’ll hurry up with the retirement of their old MD-80s (and MD-88s).

I’m hardly an aviation buff, but I’ve learned to identify these things by their sound from inside my house, which is 20 miles from the nearest airport (occasional departures fly over at roughly 10,000 feet).

Those old low-bypass JT8D engines make so much damn low-frequency noise. Every time I hear and feel that infrasonic rumble I think “must be an MD80”, and sure enough, if I check Flightradar24 it’s always one of those loud suckers, and always operated by Delta.

[hueving]

Agree that the md80s are noisy monsters, but really has very little overlap with customer satisfaction. <1% of Delta's customers are going to live close enough to an airport with Delta mad dog departures and even fewer of them will take noise at home into consideration for their satisfaction.

[oliveshell]

True— I was sort of venting and neglected to note that it wasn’t really related— but at the very least, I personally avoid flying Delta because it bugs me so much. It’s perhaps a silly reason, but it’s the truth.

Just a sample size n=1 though.

[dingaling]

Customers actually like the Mad Dogs because the average cabin noise is lower; with aft-mounted engines it's only the last few rows that are loud. Everyone ahead of that gets to ride first-class-cabin-quiet even in economy.

Now near-airport-resident satisfaction is another, unrelated issue.

[bronco21016]

It’s coming... https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2018-1...

[iancarroll]

If you look at the photos they actually track pilot efficiency on the MD-88 in a separate metric than the rest of the pilots. I thought that was pretty funny.

[bronco21016]

Which photo? Are you confusing MD-88/90 with Delta Connection perhaps?