Lack of intercoms in Boeing/Airbus aircraft??

[potrack]

yes they do have intercoms

Transport aircraft have intercoms.

You don't wear "David-Clark" type headsets.

You wear thin little Telex boom-mics.

Normally you don't communicate over intercom, just talk out loud in the cockpit.
During Emergencies, with the oxygen mask on, you have to use intercom. I think it may deal with how an aircraft is certified by the FAA---it has to have intercom for emergency purposes.

 

[Trojan]

As potrack says, we do have intercoms, we just usually don't use them. Why? Old habit, mostly. When you're airborne so much of the time, using a heavy, uncomfortable, noise reduction headset (that's all there used to be) gets even more fatigueing than talking loud enough to be heard in a noisey cockpit. While the cockpit of a 727/737 is loud enough to require elevated speech volume, it's still much quiter than an unpressurized, uninsulated, propeller driven aircraft where the engine is 12 inches in front of you. Now that modern electronics have allowed lightweight, comfortable, db cancelling headsets that new pilots are growing up on, you will probably see more of the next generation airline pilots using them.Great question...

 

[English]

The A-320 is nice and quiet up front, and so for the vast majority of the time we operate 'topless'...
QUOTE]

You had me going there for a moment. maybe jetBlue is a more fun environment to work in than I expected!