cell phone calls on airplanes?

[Jeffc]

it could be possible in the near future in the US.

Personally, I would prefer not to see this happen, I enjoy the quiet of the plane and the lats thing I want is some guy beside me yakking on his phone for 2 hours

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/technology/fcc-will-consider-allowing-cellphone-use-in-flight.html?_r=0

[LOFT]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

Agreed. Some jerks will see it as their inalienable right to use the phone just because they now can. More invasion of my precious private space in economy coach.

[thegolfnutter]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

Same here. We've done ok so far not allowing phone calls on planes. Why start now?

[hamiltonhacker]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

While I agree that cell phone calls should not be allowed on airplanes (I have been plagued by loud talkers on Go Trains, so I can imagine how much worse planes would be), I am afraid the cat is already part way out of the bag since most airlines seem to be advertising some form of wi-fi, even on trans ocean flights.

Wi-fi = the ability to use Skype, even on your smartphone. We are doomed to an eternity of babbling in the skies.

[ace in the hazard]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

I've never thought of an airplane as my Fortress of Solitude. Couldn't care less if the person beside me is talking as I always have ear plugs or noise-cancelling head phones. The convenience of being able to coordinate pick ups on early/late flights, deal with emergencies etc outweighs the almost nonexistent added problems for me.

[thegolfnutter]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

I've never thought of an airplane as my Fortress of Solitude. Couldn't care less if the person beside me is talking as I always have ear plugs or noise-cancelling head phones. The convenience of being able to coordinate pick ups on early/late flights, deal with emergencies etc outweighs the almost nonexistent added problems for me.

I have a feeling that most calls will be something like this:

"I'm on an airplane!"
...
"What?"
...
"No, an airplane!"
...
"Yeah...so what are you doing?"

Maybe they should hand out noise canceling headphones at the gate.

[pendlebg]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

I do think the airlines are going to struggle with this. They are in a no win situation. Some will demand that they can talk on the plane, and will want to setup a complete virtual office in their seat and feel no concern for anyone around them. Some will demand no phones on planes and be very pushy and verbal to flight attendants during flights.

Maybe they can borrow from Get Smart and create an airplane seat version of the cone of silence.

I also see big differences between the type of flight you are on. Short haul 1- 2 hour up and down flights not as big a deal as Trans ocean overnight flights or red eyes back from the west coast. The only thing there that would help is most North American's are sleeping then anyway so there are less people to call.

Will be interesting. I would be in favour of allowing wifi but still banning phone calls. Seems like a decent compromise. It has been proven repeatedly that the use of wifi has no impact on flight controls.

[Jeffc]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

I've never thought of an airplane as my Fortress of Solitude. Couldn't care less if the person beside me is talking as I always have ear plugs or noise-cancelling head phones. The convenience of being able to coordinate pick ups on early/late flights, deal with emergencies etc outweighs the almost nonexistent added problems for me.

there's something called texting that could easily deal with the vast majority of issues without causing people to lose their minds.

[laps]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

As long as there are people who feel that they have to yell into a cell phone I wont support cell phones in the plane. I don't think that the manners of North Americans are sufficiently developed for this to be a good idea.

[Pimento Cheese]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

The fees should be outrageous to discourage long or frequent calls. When I hear people's phone calls on transit, it's not the quick co-ordination phone calls that bug me, it's the inane chit-chat calls that people make to fill their travel time. If I had to listen to one of those damn calls on a plane, I'd go completely ape.

[Coleslaw]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

Noise cancelling headphones ftw.

[GFlynn]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

I would prefer not to see them on planes. My wife would always be on it, and I already don't let her do that in the car when I'm driving. I feel the same way about subways. It's a shared environment and as much as I would like to believe in the decency of humanity, there are enough bad apples that would ruin it for everyone.

I do think Canada needs to hurry up and get on board with the states allowing e-readers and anything on airplane mode to be used during take-off and landing.

[Section ThirtyOne]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

While I agree that cell phone calls should not be allowed on airplanes (I have been plagued by loud talkers on Go Trains, so I can imagine how much worse planes would be), I am afraid the cat is already part way out of the bag since most airlines seem to be advertising some form of wi-fi, even on trans ocean flights.

Wi-fi = the ability to use Skype, even on your smartphone. We are doomed to an eternity of babbling in the skies.

Depending on how the airlines have implemented access (satellite vs ground-based), the latency of the in-flight wifi is likely too high to support real-time video.

[Pimento Cheese]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

Depending on how the airlines have implemented access (satellite vs ground-based), the latency of the in-flight wifi is likely too high to support real-time video.

Skype is for audio calls too.

[pendlebg]

Re: cell phone calls on airplanes?

there's something called texting that could easily deal with the vast majority of issues without causing people to lose their minds.

It will not help with the business conference calls, typically an hour in length, that many people would take while on a plane if they could. I would likely go nuts on a 4 hour flight to hear 4 back to back to back to back conf calls from the person sitting beside me. I expect that is going to be the worst case offenders. Next time while sitting at the gate waiting to board on a North American weekday flight look around at how many have their laptops out conducting sales or company calls at the gate the entire time. Now imagine sitting in the seat right beside them. Texting is not going to solve that problem.