‘I’m on the plane’: the disturbing idea of airborne phone calls

On many flights, the ban on mobile phones is observed only begrudgingly, with cabin crew prising handsets from the fingers of besuited businessmen. Soon, new rules mean they’ll be chatting away merrily throughout the flight, and that’s going to add a whole new kind of pain to the already fraught business of long-haul air travel.

Most of us struggle to believe that something we carry in our pocket could bring down a Jumbo Jet. As Toby Ziegler says in The West Wing: "We’re flying in a Lockheed Eagle series L-1011. It came off the line 20 months ago and carries a Sim-5 transponder tracking system. Are you telling me I can flummox this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack?"

Personally, I’m always happy to turn off my phone, regardless of whether it threatens the navigation system. It’s one of the few times when no one can reach me, and I enjoy the feeling of dropping off the grid. For others, being constantly on call means being constantly productive, and for them making calls in the air could be very lucrative. For the rest of us, it’s just going to be annoying.

Public use of mobile phones has proved beyond doubt that the least interesting people have the most to say and the loudest voices with which to say it. They also tend to have annoying ringtones. Sitting next to one of these people on a transatlantic flight is not going to be pleasant: apart from the usual irritations of an inane and one-sided phone call, which will be the same in the sky as it is at sea level, airborne mobile use will introduce several new annoyances:

1. Confinement. You’re trapped in a small metal tube, potentially for a very long time, and changing seats is getting harder. As airlines struggle to make money they’re running fewer flights and cramming more people onto each one, so planes are operating at full capacity more often. That means you’ll have fewer options to escape a loudmouth.

2. Volume. Aircraft cabins are noisy places, and that means onboard calls are going to involve a lot of shouting. Brace yourself for conversations consisting entirely of: "What? ... No, I can’t hear you … What? … No, I’m on the plane …"

3. Timing. Any international flight worthy of its name carts people who live in various time zones from one time zone to another. There’s really no such thing as day and night on a plane, and that means someone’s phone will always ring just as you’re dropping off to sleep. Even if the recipient has done the decent thing and put the phone on vibrate, their bellowing will wake you just as effectively.

4. Fear. For many people, flying is an unpleasant and stressful experience. Sudden and unexplained shouting three rows back in a darkened cabin is not going to make it any more relaxing.

5. Suspicion. Ryanair recently paid damages to a group of musicians who were ejected from a flight after a psychology professor got suspicious and told cabin crew – mistakenly – that they were a threat to the plane. Half-heard and misunderstood conversations in many different languages will no doubt lead to more such incidents, with jumpy passengers leaping to the wrong conclusion.

6. Terrorism. Two years ago the FBI opposed plans to allow the use of phones on flights over American territory, arguing that they could help terrorists co-ordinate attacks. In the reactive world of airline security, in which liquid bombs lead to liquid bans and shoe bombs lead to X-rayed shoes, airborne calls are unlikely to outlast the first whispers of a phone-assisted plot.

In the meantime, we’ll all have to deal with the more mundane but widespread threat to our sleep and equanimity. Airlines will rush to install the system in the hope of attracting the premium passengers whose business-class tickets subsidise cut-price economy fares, but the commercial appeal may be short-lived.

For every passenger desperate to take to the skies and start making calls – and you know who you are – there will be several others forced to sit nearby. If they’re well brought-up they’ll wait until they’ve landed before phoning rival airlines to find one that hasn’t installed the system, but they won’t wait much longer. The world’s favourite airline may well end up being the quietest.

Comments

[Andrew Milner]

So them calls made from flights on 9-11...If mobile calls from an aircraft have only just become possible, how were those pivotal calls made? Because in many people's mind, this was the clincher that proved that planes full of passengers were in fact hijacked for the attacks. Naturally, I figured it out years ago. Just waiting for the sheeple to catch up.

[Sebastian]

You mean, if they're "well brought-up" and from England, "they'll wait until they've landed"? I'm German, and from my personal experience with my fellow countrymen, don't expect them to be tolerant of some loud-mouth on the mobile chatting for extended periods of time while they want to catch some sleep... I guess the whole nonsense of allowing mobiles on air planes will end, when the first phone got thrown out of an emergency exit, in a fit of air rage - mid-air over the Indian Ocean.

[phil]

I feel this will be self limiting in some ways. If someone next to me is allowed to incessantly gabble on the phone then i'll feel empowered to turn up my hand held game, or to have a loud conversation with my neighbor etc. Are the airlines going to say to me "oi keep it down alan sugar is trying to make a call?" I don't think so. It's lose lose.

[Paul Charnley]

Considering the world wide fear of terrorism, allowing mobile phone calls on aircraft is wise? I don't think so! Mind you the thought of a long flight sitting next to a 'caller' might induce me to immediate violence!

[Jo]

Remember you have to be within reach of a repeater and the real issue has been confusing the system as we race past in take off or landing. Calls in the air will be pretty expensive, I think.

There may be benefits in some way. How about a p2p system where you can text whoever has their phone on to find out who would like a game of bridge? Passenger revolts at the quality of the tea? Counts of how many people have already lost their luggage?

We will be able to insist that airlines call us back to tell us what arrangements they have made to reconnect us, what hotel we will be staying in, where our luggage is!

Some more?

[Robert Hitchcock]

Jo, the plan as announced by Ofcom is to have a low powered base station, or cell aboard the aircraft itself. So far, it will only be in UK jurisdiction so internal flights only.
I for one will only fly on an airline that does not allow it. Incidentally, you can make calls from your seat on most of the International flights I have been on recently, some aircraft also have a fax machine.

[David]

I can think of few things worse than being incarcerated on a flight next to someone talking on their phone.

[J Beattie]

Am totally against mobile phones in
planes,as is the inventor of mobile phones-heard on the radio on Sunday!

[Jim]

It's bad enough listening to these know-it-alls when we're on the ground. Never-No Way while were flying.

[251-964-5432]

Well, my thought is that having a cell phone on a flight is good--especially if we have terrorists on the plane--so that I could tell my family or police what the hell is going on and they could either shoot us down or evacuate the intended target of the terrorists.

[cdigi]

Ear plugs.. buy some.

[Ian & Mya]

How dare people think they are so important that in the sealed confines of an aircraft cabin they have the right to disturb other passengers. Imagine your reaction if you have just managed to doze off on a long flight. It has the makings of many an air rage incident.

[sam]

this is a no brainer - set aside a rear section and allow phone-users to sit among themselves only.

[Manners]

I think I have a solution: I sent for a gadget from the UK that jams all cellphones. When it's on no one can send or receive. It's tiny, easily concealed in my pocket. I tried it and it works very well.

[Swain]

The Calls made from the airplanes on 9/11 weren't made from cell phones. They were made from the seat phones that have been on planes for the last 15 years. If you haven't at least skimmed through the 9/11 report you're not qualified to debunk it.

[Duncan, Truro]

Cellphone calls will only be possible on those aircraft fleets once they have a pico-cell installed, to interface your GSM mobile phone through the aircraft's own air-ground or satellite communication system. The crew will always have control of the system, which may well only permit text messaging, according to the airline's general operating policy. Cost will be similar to present international roaming charges, whereas airline-installed seat-back phones are self-limiting with a calling cost of several dollars per minute for a call! Live in hope - it's almost a racing certainty that voice calls will be blocked, allowing only SMS use, to keep down the passenger riots.

[STFU]

It will come down to cell vs. non-cell seating.

[Mark Roddis]

Whilst I would like to think the cost will rule this option out for a lot of potential users of this service I am afraid all those PAYG users will not work it out until they get to their destination and have no credit left.

But I have yet to hear anybody who is actually for this.

I am sure the airlines will go ahead anyway as it provides a great new source of revenue though.

[Carey]

I sat in a plane waiting on a runway for an hour last week, and the crew announced that it was OK to use phones. So for 50 minutes, we had to endure some of the most mindless chatter I have ever heard. Imagining a 5 hour flight listening to the lady behind me discuss everything from the weather to her health to her bratty kids makes me sick - she sounded like a shovel scraping on concrete. After the first 2 hours someone would have opened the door and thrown her and the phone out.

[Frank Maunder]

For those who remember when the BIG QUESTION was: "Smoking Or Non?"; it's time for the ticket people to start asking "Talking Or Non?". For just a while, when the subway here in Bangkok was new, mobile phones worked (sort of) in the stations, but blinked out when the train entered the tunnel. It was loads of fun to watch people confusedly saying "helloah... helloah" and peering at their handsets, wondering what had happened. The ever-helpful MRT has since added service throughout. Bummer!

[sharon scott]

I'm baffled that no one commented on the first comment...9-11...I agree. Those supposed cell phone calls from the "hijacked airplanes" were pure propaganda.When will Americans demand a real commission to investigate.

[Venus]

The limits of one's sanity are already tested in the terminal and under ordinary circumstances on any flight. Instead of further testing the limits of restraint for my homicidal tendencies, the airlines should be forced to offer bathroom-sized phone booths with a 7-minute limit.

[Russ]

If banning cell phones on aircraft is a wise thing, then it should be done for technically explanable reasons and not just because somebody thinks something bad about the things or the people that use them. The arguement that they may interfere with the aircraft electronics is something that can be easily proven yea or nay by technicians that service the aircraft electronics. Be real about the situation and don't sucumb to hearsay from unknowledgable people.

[Alison Graham]

I think it's terrrible idea. Yes, it opens up your time window for doing business but how many businessmen entirely rely on the tranquility and sleep-conducive environment of planes to get any rest at all?!

[Martin]

Why don't the airlines just install the technology, and charge customers an arm and a leg to use it from a small private cubicle on the plane, jamming access elsewhere on the plane. £10 per minute to use the equipment would be fine. It will allow important business calls, but stop the stupid "I'm on the plane" type calls.

[Very frequent flyer.]

The argument that cellphones affect flight safety was always nonsensical; the few milliwatts of a cellphone are far, far lower than the megawatts of a TV transmitter within line of sight of a landing plane. The ban on cellphones was only to encourage the use (and revenue) of in-flight phones and to somewhat reduce interference to terrestrial cell sites. Besides, most people forget to turn their cellphones and Blackberries off in flight anyway.

Bossy stewardesses loved the ban as it gave them yet one more little thing to exercise authority over instead of doing what they ought to, which is to serve soft drinks and smile pretty.

As for the noise of someone talking on a cellphone, it will be no worse than someone using the present in-flight phones; their use will be minimal since the cost to the users will be comparable.

[Daniel Beckwith]

Here's what I'd do as soon as somebody started talking on their phone. Put my iPod on, put my noise isolating earphones in, and sing right into their face!! I won't be able to hear them - I wont be able to hear my awful singing!! See how long it takes someone to hang up!