Dear passengers, we request you to kindly turn off your phones…

…as they interfere with the aircraft’s communications.

Really?
—————-

Dear flight attendant,

Let’s stop, pause and ruminate over what you just said.

Are you saying, that you and your crew, who are supposed to have great presence of mind and judgment and are solely responsible for ensuring my safety in case the going gets tough, really believe in what you just said?

Which is basically that aircrafts that cost upwards of Rs.300 crore (US$ 60 mn) are routinely getting built, and sold, and bought by the entire airline industry when all the stakeholders involved know that the most ubiquitous device in the history of the world interferes with its proper functioning?

Seriously?!

Signed,
It hasn’t made sense for a long time

—————-

What about all that spectrum the Government sells to telecom companies?
Did they sell that to the airlines too?

Btw, in case you’ve followed the news over the last decade, the reason for this change in policy was probably different – passengers on United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth flight on the fateful morning of September 11, 2001 that crashed in Pennsylvania had learnt about the other hijackings through phone calls they could make using the aircraft phone and their mobiles. It was soon after this that the airline industry decided to disallow people from using mobile phones probably to avoid widespread panic in case such an event were to ever happen again.

And in any case, in India, it’s not even as if mobile phones would work up in the air even if you were to allow them.

Telecom operators usually focus on coverage that spans across the surface of the earth, not towards the sky, which is more true in India than the rest of the world as India probably has amongst the lowest percentage of skyscrapers in urban areas across the world. This is reinforced by the fact that there are coverage issues in most high-rise buildings, starting at heights of 80 metres or more, which are usually rectified by telecom operators by using IBSs (in-building solutions).

So if Indian users can’t really use mobile phones while up in the air to spread information (which I believe is actually beneficial in case of a hijacking), and mobile phones don’t really interfere with aircraft communications, then what’s the harm in letting your passengers enjoy their phones for a while longer?

Unless of course, the airlines have realized that their brand perception dips even more when their passengers are allowed to use phones as it lets them complain to their friends and family about how the airline’s flight is behind schedule again, which for those unaware with the Indian aviation scene, is quite an endemic problem these days…

Full disclosure: On a trip from Bangalore to Goa in 2005, my phone was on throughout the flight. The network came on a full 9 minutes before the plane landed on the tarmac, safe and sound. Nowadays I prefer to turn the phone off without being asked – to conserve battery, more than anything else. But then again, it’s usually never before the aircraft is on its final run to takeoff…