by Matt Barr

Celloplane

The FCC may lift its ban on the use of cell phones in flight (you heard it here first!). The Christian Science Monitor reports:

[F]ew groups are more opposed to allowing cellphone use than the airlines' own front-line personnel. Flight attendants are concerned not only about terrorists, but also about passengers' air rage if they're forced to sit and listen to someone else chatter for three or four hours.

"We'd have to deal with all the situations that could arrive from that, the disruptions that could escalate to where there are physical ramifications," says Candace Kolander, a flight attendant and coordinator of air safety, health, and security for the Association of Flight Attendants in Washington. "So while the technology may be available to make it possible, there are some environments, like an aircraft cabin, where cellphone use is just not appropriate."

Two observations. One, sounds like cell phone-free flights would be a great revenue-enhancing opportunity (indeed, the CSM article notes that a survey "found that 63 percent of the flying public does not want the cellphone ban lifted," and if it is, "70 percent would want a separate section for talkers.") Two, what happens if the guy next to you on the plane is making loud farting noises in your ear? Are flight attendants powerless to stop that, or might they ask him to stop on your behalf?

I realize people who talk on cell phones when the plane has arrived at the gate but before disembarkment tend to speak at three times their normal decibel level, but I think in a quiet in-flight environment most people will want their conversations a little more discrete. And if they're loud and disruptive, it's the same as if they were loud and disruptive doing something else, isn't it?

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