Community poll forum: If cell phone usage were allowed on flights today...

After spending more than 5 million miles in the air I can think of many offensive things. 250 pound Gold's Gym wannabees in tank tops exhibiting masses of body hair and odor. Well-dressed gentlemen chewing tobacco and spending a three hour flight spitting into a cup (in first class, yet!)
People cackling loudly and keeping up a running commentary on the insipid in-flight movie.
A cell phone is a tool. It has never been demonstrated that a cell phone disrupts any aircraft equipment.
The problem with cell phones, as with the items mentioned above, is one of human courtesy or the lack thereof.
Most (certainly not all) business travellers have learned that shouting into a phone does not improve communication. And for some of us spending many hours incommunicado can be very disruptive to our business endeavours. For this, and many other reasons, I strongly believe that the use of cell phones with appropriate restrictions to enforce some minimum courtesies should be allowed. One restriction should be the use of a headset to reduce the amount of disruption. And at all times it should be the role of the flight attendant to instruct any offender who insists on speaking at a level louder than necessary to either lower the db level or cease.

...which is why you don't see being unavailable for long periods of time as being a problem.
That is one reason I take red-eyes if I can.

...mike

It is funny how the same people who get all indignant about people using cell phones in "inappropriate places" (anywhere they can hear them, apparently) and make a stink about a topic such as this, but would never lift a finger towards the parents who don't control their savage, screaming toddlers who kick the seat in front of them, people who feel the need for endless small talk, or the pilots who make long winded announcements to say that everything's fine in the cockpit. Let's keep things in perspective here: it is not fair to be hostile to someone on a cell phone where that same conversation to a person next to them, or even to themselves (a common occurrence when you take the bus to work) would otherwise be acceptable. Granted, if someone is being a loud jerk on their phone, deal with them appropriately. Every mobile phone user on the planet is not responsible for one person's lack of consideration. So what if you just remembered something important at work and need to call someone? Are you going to risk losing something important because of the oversensitive passengers around you? If it is short and quiet, your complaints are more of a disturbance than the call itself. Besides, the people who have poor cell phone etiquette wouldn't obey your little "no cell phone" rules anyway, and probably wouldn't give a hoot about your huffy indignation either.

If cell phones are allowed on flights, especially overseas flights, then please make sure that the people using them have to do so away from other passengers. I've been on some LONG overseas flights and feel that I'd come close to murder if I had to put up with some of these impolite and noisy people.

So yeah, I think it would be ok to allow them, just not where they can disturb anyone else. Though come to think of it, the airlines aren't going to want to put in soundproofed doors etc, so we'd most likely have to kill them due to frustration anyway LOL

There was a report last year of a hotel manager who got rid of his mobile office facility and it led to increased productivity.

People use these gadgets to try and prove that they are needed and important but in fact they are just meddlng in other people's lives. Turn your phone off and get a life; if you need to stay in touch with people for the time it takes to make a flight, don't fly - the world really can get by without you.

I have designed phones since 1988, I even own one but I always put it down and ask myself if I need to make the call before I do.

P.S. - I also turn the ringtone off.

The plan to use phones is being tested in the UK, the idea is very simple, the airline has a booset connestion that sends the mobile signals via a sat com link, it is turned on when the plane is above 10,00ft where according to CAA figures there is no risk of any signal leakage.

The point on the signal leakage causing problems to the other passengers, why not mention the fact that if you are a frequent flyer you are subject to a massive increase in radiation (I am not sure which one) but enough for my airhosts and hostesses to currently be being checked for increased rates of cancers, not from a mobile phone but from the increased radiation from height.

PROVIDED the aircraft is within "sight" of a cellphone mast. And that is part of the problem. I Canada, large and sparsely populated, aircraft would often be too far (weak or no signal) from a mast.
In densely populated areas there is the reverse problem - the phone is "seen" by too many cells - because it is high up, rather than "line of sight" at ground level. This confuses the phone network. That is the real reason you are asked not to use them on aircraft. See the following from The Economist...(part of a longer article about what a truthful in flight announement would say - some of it is scary!)
"Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems. At least, that's what you've always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn't sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate."

I think all airline seats should be equipped with the Cone of Silence, technology pioneered by Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, and the Chief of the super secret spy Agency Control. Cell phone use would be allowed only under the Cone of Silence. If it worked as well on airlines as it worked on Get Smart, it would be extremely effective in controlling cell phone annoyance, as well as being more entertaining than most inflight movies.

I am completely against cellphone usage on an airplane unless they are used in a sound-proofed section of the plane. But I don't think airlines would actually install that. I remember the smoking sections that were separated by a flimsy curtain over a seat back so that all smoke would waft over/under and around the curtain.

People shout into their phones because they don't know how to modulate their voice or how to hold the phone so speaker is actually opposite the ear canal. If you tell them they are making to much noise, they get angry at you.

The idea is already controled by the Airline as a normal phone signal will not work so the airline has a sat phone link that will be turned on when it's safe to do so, this will also mean the phone user has to pay a premium to use thier phone.

A budget airline in the UK is starting the service as soon as possible and said it will help them keep the cost of flights down as the money they will get from phone charges will help keep overheads fown and the cost of flights cheaper for all.

it is illegal to use cellphones in the air because they waste cellular company resources because they light up many towers. there is an airplane mode on many phone where all the transmitting features are shut off while you can still do other things.

Cell phones should only be allowed like now; before take-off and after landing.
I do not want to be on a flight wanting to sleep and have some jerk on the phone until the battery dies.
There are way too many people with cell phones that are very inconsiderate of others when they are on the phone.

i am always using my cell phone in airplanes, i took a flight from New York to Miami and i was on the phone like for one and a half hours, everyone was sleeping. The cell phone does not explode the airplane, i saw a tv show called "Mith Busters" on Discovery channel, and does are just lies to scare people from using it. Common, they even have wireless internet on some airplanes (ask Major Nelson, he used it before).

Positively NO, They have already banned smoaking on flights which isn't fair to the people that smoke,so why shouldn't it be any different for people with cell phones. I think if they want to make their calls they can do it before they get on the plane.(The only exception to this would be in a case of emergency, Like if the plane's radio went out for some reason or the plane was being hijacked). Next they need to ban all drinking on flights. I mean why not our goverment is making quite sure of removing our rights a little at a time. Next thing you know you will have to have official papers on you in order to walk the streets just the Germans did. People better start waking up and banding together before it's to late. Like Thomas Jefferson once said "YOU DON'T KNOW YOU NEED IT UNTIL IT'S GONE".He was talking about our civil rights.

I live in Canada, and not even near a city--which is most of Canada. Even satellite phones don't work for most of Canada, except for maybe breif cherished moments here and there. Possibly southern Ontario and Quebec get full cell phone coverage, but not the rest of us. Hell, we can't even get radio without cable and satellite dishes. I do not know how you can get a cell phone to work on a plane over a mile up there! Have any of you actually used a cell phone on a plane? A laptop on internet? A satellite phone? I work in emergency vehicles and going over the mountains, it's hit and miss for radio/satellite coverage. Enlighten me, urbanites! Do cell phones work in planes?