back to article First the Yanks, now us: In-flight mobe use WON'T kill us all, say Eurocrats

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is to ease the rules limiting the use of electronic devices in aircraft passenger cabins. Phones, tablets, ebook readers, MP3 players - all the kit we’re currently told to turn off during taxiing, take-off and landing will, the agency said yesterday, be allowed to stay on provided …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. johnB

    On more than expected

    Usually the instruction to turn off the device is after bags have been stowed, seat belts fastened, the safety drill being demonstrated, & the plane toddling it's way to take off. Virtually no-one at that stage will disrupt everything to unstow hand baggage to turn off their phone if it's in the hand baggage.

    I reckon most flights take off with many devices in full working mode.

    1. CM

      Re: On more than expected

      Guilty as charged, by accident once or twice (meeting reminders wake the phone up during take-off). If this was a real risk, the aircrew would have radio wands to find the offending items, and there'd be no trolly service for them unless they were Platinum Aluminium Plus. But staff are blasé about them. BA relaxed the landing to gate trip months ago, announcing you may now turn on.. The regular offenders were already on, others misheard "you may now" as "you may not" and glared.

  2. Khaptain Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Fight Club

    I can't think of anything better for creating "tension" within an aircraft than having to sit next to a twunt with a telephone stuck to his ear for the full flight.

    Or worse still, sitting in the middle of 2 twunts......with telephones. ....ear....flight.

    1. Tweetiepooh

      Re: Fight Club

      Hopefully they will charge £1/m altitude multiplied by a bother factor.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fight Club

      Presumably you missed the bit where it says "provided their Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth radios, if they have them, are disabled"? I think it would be quite entertaining sitting next to one of those twunts as they tried to work out why they couldn't get through to anyone.

  3. Dave 126 Silver badge

    Danger!

    You still get notices on fuel station forecourts telling you to turn off your phone. At a garage near me, the woman behind the counter thinks phones can cause an explosion, despite this myth being debunked a decade ago. (hell, I occasionally get a spark of static electricity from my vehicle's door when I get out; I have yet to blow up a petrol station)

    My mechanic suggested that the policy might have come about years ago, when some CB radios interfered with the fuel measuring system on the pumps.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Danger!

      It's seemed pretty obvious for some time that TPTB aren't really that concerned about RF emissions at petrol stations. Plenty of examples like this monster at Membury Services.

    2. Wanda Lust

      Re: Danger!

      I know of a filling station where a street lamp style cell tower & equipment cabinet is sited immediately in front of the forecourt. Now, how did that get past planning?

  4. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Let the arguments commence

    > Phones, tablets, ebook readers, MP3 players - ... allowed to stay on ...[except] “bulky” laptops, because of their size and concerns they might get in the way during an emergency situation

    "I'm sorry sir/madam, you'll have to put your tablet away, it's too bulky and might cause injury in an emergency."

    "But that guy over there has a much bigger device (guy turns to the camera, smiles and gets a "ting" star added to his upper incisor) and you've let him keep it."

    And so the pre-flight fights start. With everyone else using their flight-approved devices to video the jerk¹ in question. Will we need the iphone equivalent of case-checking frames: small enough to fit in and you can keep it on. Too big or overweight and away it goes.

    While I applaud the sudden and uncharacteristic attack of common sense, I can see yet more rows caused before take off, when everybody else just wants the flight to start.

    [1] deliberately left ambiguous as to whether the jerk is the attendant or the passenger.

  5. The Man Himself Silver badge
    Devil

    Ryanair

    I wouldn't be suprised if Ryanair size the opportunity to add a "being allowed to keep your Kindle switched on" supplement to their ticket prices

  6. Tom 7

    Are we allowed to bite arms that come across our faces?

    I haven't used public transport for a while but people using phones dont seem to be aware of other humans.

    1. deadlockvictim

      Re: Are we allowed to bite arms that come across our faces?

      Tom 7»but people using phones dont seem to be aware of other humans.

      Which is why they are such perfect targets for thieves on bicycles.

  7. Tim Parker

    So to try and summarise... the only bit the airlines and boffins were really concerned with, they still are - but now instead of asking people to turn off the devices completely, they can remain on as long as all the radios (in the general sense) are disabled. Is that right ?

    If so, it's somewhat more convenient at times, but would also need slightly more wherewithal from the user to accomplish than now. Some may find that mildly concerning - frankly i've sat next to plenty of people on planes who seem quite far away from the reading age required just to turn the things off.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Most reports conclude that they “may” do so, but no one can be sure."

    Really? It's impossible to test this stuff? Why?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I like it like that. Can you imagine being next to someone wittering away.."oooh the engines are revving... ooo we're moving... oooo we're taking off... this is soooooo exciting...." etc. etc. until they lose signal... only to have same conversation in reverse when you're landing? Now multiply that by 20 or 30...

      No... keep it to "turn your phones off or we'll crash".

  9. Steve Martins

    "No it has to be powered off properly"

    followed by the passenger (again) just pressing the power button once to turn the screen off, this time not seen by the host/hostess. Maybe we will need something akin to the "speed awareness course", a "mobile device flight-mode/power off awareness course" because this task seems to beyond the technical capabilities of many passengers - and that's just those who speak one of the two languages in which the instruction is announced.

    I think this battle was lost a long time ago, so its about time they relaxed the rules - same reason they should be raising the motorway speed to 80mph (unless you think they should be booking 90% of motorists for speeding...)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "No it has to be powered off properly"

      Don't forget - Lord Advocate guidelines state that you should only charge someone who is doing more than 9mph over the limit otherwise a warning will suffice.

      Doesn't mean they can't, just means they probably wont.

      So really, you can already drive at near enough 80mph. Of course, once you raise the limit to 80, people drive at 90, and so on.

      /derail

    2. Deano2099

      Re: "No it has to be powered off properly"

      Because there have been no airplane crashes as a result of mobile phones, just like there have been no motorway accidents that would have been prevented had the driver not been speeding.

  10. Neil Hoskins

    Earphones

    The main deal with taxi, takeoff, and landing is people listening to music through headphones. If you've got Van Halen blasting your eardrums, you won't be able to hear important announcements, and then, trust me, I *will* trample you underfoot.

    1. MrXavia

      Re: Earphones

      On a recent Virgin Atlantic flight, I found their in flight entertainment runs from taxi to landing, just with the rule to use the provided headphones during takeoff and landing for safety, i.e. you can hear announcements...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    is that dark shadow...

    ... visible in the screening xray a battery or explosives? Gadget bomb coming soon to a flight near you!

    1. qwertyuiop
      WTF?

      Re: is that dark shadow...

      Why is it "coming soon"? You have always been able to carry your phone, tablet, e-reader, laptop, camera, etc. onto flights. So if you wanted to create a "gadget bomb" then you could always have done it. This rare outbreak of common sense changes nothing.

  12. Chuunen Baka

    I once left my phone on (accidently) on a flight from Heathrow to Belfast. When I landed I found a text welcoming me to Guernsey. How does that work?

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Joke

      Must have been using Apple Maps! :-D

    2. jonfr

      Your flight angle

      It is about your flight angle (10 to 20%) and your distance from the tower in question. This mostly just works with GSM-900 rather then GSM-1800. Since GSM-900 can travel longer distances then GSM-1800.

    3. You have not yet created a handle

      I've just got back from Vegas flying on Virgin - you can use their on-board mobile network whilst in flight which is a bonus as a nervous flyer (FlightPro), even more of a bonus was the strong AT&T signal I got over Denver which meant I was able to surf the internet at 3G speed for standard (not overly inflated Airline) roaming costs.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like