Here's an interesting article on the "real" reasons why airlines have a ban on cell phone usage during flights. Assuming the article is right and the devices don't actually interfere with anything related to the flying of the plane, how do you guys think they should be handled? Should the ban be maintained to avoid all the things that come with having people packed like sardines as they hurtle across the sky, half of them speaking waaaay too loudly about how awesome the latest episode of One Tree Hill was? Should cell phone use be permitted but its use restrained through a conjunction of airline policy and socially reinforced rules of etiquette? Should there be designated areas of the plane for cell phone use? What impact, if any, will the soon to be integrated wi-fi on planes have on your answer?
Thanks Ezra!
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Couple of things in this article:
1) Some cell phones do interfere with avionics. Myth Busters proved it, and more anecdotally, I have had some problems when flying little single engines. Shielding really is a non-starter because it is more weight, and more weight means more money, and the airlines are operating a profit margin of 1-2% anyway.
2) It's the FCC that made them illegal on planes, not the FAA. The FAA does not care.
3) Even if these things weren't true, you are not important enough to need to be talking to someone on a cell phone on a plane. There is nothing that you can do on a plane, anyway, if there is an emergency on the ground.
GoddessCassandra
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