The Myth of Switching Phones in the Plane

[Jacaylbaro]

There is only one situation in which all mobile phones must be turned off. Not at formal suppers, in the middle of a play, during the key moment in a film or while an opera singer is attempting the most difficult of arias; we’ve all heard someone’s mobile phone go off in such circumstances. No, the only time when people are genuinely concerned that their phone might prove dangerous is when they get on a plane and hear the usual lie: ‘All mobile phones must be switched off during the flight because they might interfere with the on-board systems.’ We all believe this and do as the flight attendants ask.

 

When this myth had been created: for years now, airlines had been doing their best to convince passengers to use the phones attached to their seat. These cost ten dollars a minute and use the same transmission system as mobile phones. The strategy didn’t work, but the myth lingered on; they had simply forgotten to remove the warning from the list o

f dos and don’ts that the flight attendant has to read out before take-off. What no one knew was that on every flight, there were always at least two or three passengers who forgot to turn their phones off, and besides, laptops access the Internet using exactly the same system as mobiles. And no plane anywhere in the world has yet fallen out of the sky because of that.

 

Now they were trying to modify the warning without alarming the passengers too much and without dropping the price. You could use your mobile phone as long as it was one you could put into flight mode. Such phones cost four times as much. No one has ever explained what ‘flight mode’ is, but if people choose to be taken in like this, that’s their problem.

 

 

 

-Paulo Coelho

[N.O.R.F]

Nothing new there. If phones were a real security risk they would simply take them off the passengers.

[BoldNewSomali]

I sure am glad that they force people to turn off their phones. I fly twice a month and there is nothing more annoying to me than the cadaan guys walking around the terminal blaring on and on about some business related stuff. "Yea Tom and I just did the presentation for Stryker and they are really interested in purchasing" blah blah blah. I would go insane if I had to hear that bs in the closed confines of the plane.