Increasingly, it looks as if airlines will be making the call as to whether or not the public will be able to use their cellphones for voice calls while flying. New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has called the current prohibition on calls “outdated and restrictive.” He wants the airlines, not the government, to have final say on in-flight calling.
Two points.
Yes, there is no longer a concern that in-flight calls will interfere with cellular networks on the ground. But so what that it’s not a technological issue? It’s very much a common sense, common courtesy issue. Being held hostage to supermarket-aisle chatter at 35,000 feet is a circle of hell not even Dante could have envisioned.
Second, this has the look of a Marketing 101 coup. Given that the flying public now deals with more fees, fewer frills and less leg and elbow room, this could actually be an upside variable. Already Delta has said that regardless of FCC recommendations, it won’t relent and allow voice calls. Expect others to declare in effect: “We don’t fly cellphoneys. You deserve better.”
And this just in. An Associated Press-GfK Poll finds that only 19 percent of Americans support allowing the use of cellphones for voice calls while flying. And the number drops from there as the survey samples those who have taken more than one flight in the past year.
So as a result, maybe nothing, in effect, changes. Other carriers simply follow Delta’s lead, but the flying public feels better about cramped space, extra fees and cheesy snacks because they’ve dodged the cellphone voice calls bullet–and it could have been so much worse.