ursine1

Related: Following the recommendation of the FAA, the FCC is considering allowing voice communication via cell phones in flight. Unlike PED use for wifi and IFE, I believe passengers are overwhelmingly against this. The new FCC chairman is a former cell phone industry lobbyist, so I suspect the ban may indeed be lifted. I fear airlines will see this as a potential new revenue stream and allow it… but one hopes instead they'll block voice calls as a matter of policy, foregoing those earnings in favor of a more civilized cabin environment.

FCfree

Does that mean they turn it on at 5,000 feet AGL in Denver but 10,000 feet AGL out of LAX? I've always wondered that.

steved5480

Actually it did...sorta....prior to this week's change in policy/procedure.

Those that pay close attention (or cheat by counting!) can certainly see the difference in climb time between rotation & the 10K chime for those two stations as well as many other pairs.

I wonder how often the little orange light on the overhead up-front will need to be replaced, since it will be "on" all of the time.

joshua362

Wow. That shows you the absurdity of the previous rule. The rational of 10,000 feet was to give the pilots ample attitude and time to figure out what was going wrong if PED interference was suspect. So 4,000' AGL in mountainous terrain near Denver has the same safety margin as 10,000' AGL at sea level? Ponderous!

jreuschl

This is not my story.. A post on CNET about wifi gate to gate:

"I flew on a 7AM flight out of Seattle on Thursday morning -- one of the very first departures of the day under the new policy. There's clearly some re-training necessary for the flight attendants.

My older-generation iPad is a WiFi-only model. She argued with me that WiFi should be OFF because there's no earthly way that I should be allowed to watch the complimentary live TV (provided by DISH until year's end) when the plane was below 10,000 feet. I showed her the email from SWA, and she argued that I didn't know how to read and cannot argue with her per FAA rules. Moments later, the pilot announced that she was actually SWA's top flight attendant for Q3 and was in the running for Of-The-Year honors.

The back-and-forth with her was about the line "above and below 10,000 feet", the "gate to gate", and the Airplane Mode wording. She emphasized that airplane mode means no WiFi access and said the rest of the email didn't matter.

My advice for any Southwest travelers: carry a printed-out copy of the email and highlight the "gate-to-gate" and "above and below 10,000 feet" wording. When Southwest's flight attendants mess up my drink order, that's one thing... when they mess up official company announcements, that's even worse!"

Wonder how the pilot knew she was supposedly so good? FA brag to the pilot hey make sure you tell the cabin how good I am!

expert7700

wow. so under the old rules 'airplane mode the entire flight' meant that the purchased/paid internet was not wireless?

I'd venture to smile and ask her for a gate supervisor if the flight hasn't yet taken off. First passenger to be thrown off a flight for using an approved device at an approved time will make some news and get some very nice compensation from headquarters.

joshua362

I flew a leg Thursday night and in the cleanup before landing, a FA told me to put away my iPad. I shrugged and complied. A few minutes later he came back and apologized.

seascott

Same thing happened to me today. FA tells me to turn off WIFI before take off and stop watching DISH. I said that was counter to the SWA email. FA just walked off without saying anything more. Policy is not really clear with the crews yet.

whoknew89

Had a similar thing happen to me on both a WN flight and an AA flight within the last two weeks. The AA flight really irritated me because I wasn't the only passenger complaining when the flight attendants announced to turn off all electronic devices as we pushed back from the gate. I counted about seven people including myself complaining and citing the new rules but the flight attendants held their ground.

bon95

looks like flights on airtran metal now also allow gate-to-gate PED use. Both flights I had today the FA announced the use of PED is allowed.

OzzyOzzie

On my MDW->LAS, LAS->SNA & SNA->PHX->MDW flights, we were instructed (from the cockpit) to turn off all electronic devices until we reached 10,000 feet. The WiFi light was constantly on though. I never did notice if that was always the case

ursine1

Did you ask and FA or the pilot (after landing) what the reason was for the deviation from policy?

kennycrudup

"Turn off" or "airplane mode"? I've only done SNA-SFO r/ts over the last two weeks, but I've been on my tablet from boarding to deplaning with no mention from flight crew.

Nah, it only used to come on between Departure and Arrival checks (10KFt).

OzzyOzzie

Airplane mode for phones, off for other electronic devices. I did ask a FA before we took off if it was okay to leave electronics on and she said yes. Then the dreaded voice from the cockpit says to turn them off. In retrospect I guess I should have asked

kennycrudup

Today a WN FA made a point of singling out Bluetooth devices as forbidden once the door is closed. Not sure where that came from (and in nearly 5 years of biweekly trips I've yet to bring down a flight with my headphone adapter) especially since BT is nearly the same frequency block as 2.4GHz WiFi. Ah well, I just turned up the volume on the movie I was watching and tuned her out