Electronic usage during flight - not consistent
 

As we all know as of November DL and the FAA allow door to door electronics usage on flights. I did a ORD-ATL-DUB-JFK-ORD and there was a lot of inconsistency between the flight crews on the policy, even with me showing them the DL announcement and the FAA press release (I had printed).

ORD-ATL the FA said that was false information I had. The ATL-DUB pilot actually said "We are happy to let you know that all electronic devices besides laptop computers can be used at all points in the flight, laptops need to remained stowed until we reach cruise."

DUB-JFK the FA's wouldn't let us use them, and JFK-ORD they were fine with it.

Anyone know why the inconsistency between crews? This should have been fairly big news.

Delta does not have approval to allow PED use below 10,000 feet internationally (nor does any other airline). The recent PED policy change was an FAA regulatory change; EASA, CAA, and other international regulatory agencies still prohibit PED use during certain flight phases.

If you check Delta's official PED policy, it only allows the sub-10,000 foot electronics in US airspace and over international waters.

Was ORD-ATL mainline or a regional jet? If the latter, not all of the Delta Connection carriers had received approval to allow electronics at the same time Delta mainline did. They all now have the approval but there was a time where some did and some didn't.

DUB-JFK, your crew was correct in not letting you use until above 10k (at least on takeoff), and ATL-DUB should have made you turn them off on approach to DUB. The rule change is only for flights operating in US/int'l airspace. The only curious (incorrect?) one is ORD-ATL, and I wonder if that wasn't an international crew...

I've been on 9 domestic legs (mix of mainline and skywest) and all 9 not only let us use them, they were quite happy about it in the pre-departure safety spiel.

As of yesterday, all DCI carriers have authorization for use within US airspace.

https://twitter.com/DeltaNewsroom/st...52295124983808

ORD-ATL was a mainline (MD80 and they didn't let us) and the JFK-ORD was a regional CRJ900 (which was OK with it)

This makes me smile!! ^

This has been my experience as well. I've flown a few domestic routes since the change and every time the attendants seemed pretty enthusiastic about it. Some of them even laughed a little as they stumbled around the wording since I guess they'd had the old spiel memorized and now had to get used to the new one! :p

Did you only have one copy of each document, or did you have extra copies to hand out? I think they like it when you provide them with documentation supporting how you think they should do their jobs. It takes a lot of the pressure off of them to make their own decisions. </sarcasm>

"A rule is a rule. And let's face it, without rules there's chaos."
-Kramer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55qUYSqA0ng