IT SEEMS THE REASON WE STILL HAVE TO USE AIRPLANE MODE WHEN FLYING IS UTTER BULLSHIT
Airplane Mode. It’s now a staple on every smartphone in the entire world, and has been for quite the long time now. I recall flying with friends years ago who pretty much ignored any requirement for just about anything from the moment we boarded till we disembarked. Including Airplane Mode, of course. I wondered at the time if Airplane Mode was even still necessary, and would having your phone accessing networks really put the plane in danger of crashing? I kind of doubted it. But what did I know? It turns out, the inconvenience of this stupid setting on all of our phones has been unnecessary bullshit for at least 20 years.
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FOR OVER 20 YEARS, PLANES HAVE HAD THE TECH TO MAKE SURE CELLPHONES ARE SAFE
It’s been about 2 years since Europe let flying passengers make phone calls and browse with data connections. But they’re also requiring all their planes to have “pico-cells,” or hardware that makes sure that cell phone signals don’t interfere with anything on the planes themselves. Pico-cell sounds new. But they’ve been around for….. you guessed it, over 20 years. And way back in 2012, the FAA oversaw a study that found zero, nada, no instances in terms of cell phones interfering with a plane, never mind crashing it. So what is all this bullshit really about?
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SO WHY DO WE STILL HAVE TO USE AIRPLANE MODE? TO REDUCE AIR RAGE, WHICH IS ENRAGING
Air rage. Yes, I said “Air rage.” Clearly it’s a problem, with unruly passengers doing all sorts of stupid and criminally dangerous things on flights. Air travel regulators believe that if people can yap away all the time on their cell phones, that it will increase the incident rate of air rage. I’m not sure it that’s true. But the number of incidences of air rage in the United States has jumped 300% in 2021-2023 compared to the number in 2018-2020. I personally wonder if having to engage in air travel with the ongoing bullshit that is Airplane Mode is what increased Air Rage.
Now I think that’s total bullshit. Though, to be fair, I get somewhat touchy when people talk on speakerphone when I’m just on the bus.
