Starlink wifi is incredible. I first tried it more than three years ago while flying JSX. I’ve used it on Hawaiian Airlines and United. It’s quickly becoming the world standard because it’s not only lightning fast, but there’s really no latency. You’re in the sky connecting to low earth orbit satellites, and as a result it often works better than your high speed connection at home.
Delta is no doubt getting a really good deal from Amazon’s Leo competitor, which isn’t certified yet and still a question mark. But it means that so any other airlines, including United and Alaska and even Southwest, will be broadly equipped with better inflight internet than Delta has long before Delta even gets started. Assuming Leo works just as well, they’re planning to equip just half their fleet and won’t start until 2028.
But once everyone gets really fast inflight internet, the technological constraints to bandwidth melt away. We can all stream so much better and more consitently than the last generation of satellite internet, like ViaSat and Intelsat. Many more passengers will want to stream calls and conferences.
Qatar Airways allows this, and One Mile at a Time points out that British Airways will allow this too. That’s a good thing, and it makes me want to fly British Airways more. Most of you will disagree, but you are wrong.
The British Airways rule is actually the correct one: “please be considerate.”
- If you’re making a call, keep your voice low and use headphones.
- Please always use headphones when watching or listening to content on your device.
Here’s What U.S. Law Says About Inflight Calls And Conferencing
The FCC says at 47 C.F.R. § 22.925 that cell phone signals cannot be used inflight. That’s also supposed to extend to wifi calling. 49 U.S.C. § 41725 ordered the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations prohibiting voice communications using a mobile communications device inflight (during scheduled passenger service). The law exempts on-duty pilots, flight attendants, and federal law enforcement. But as far as I can tell no rule was ever actually issued.
Even years later, DOT lists only its 2014 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and 2016 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for this, and no final rule. Am I just misremembering and not finding it?
The DOT had proposed prohibiting voice communications regardless of whether the call is made on a commercial mobile carrier, wifi, or any other means. FCC rules do not cover wifi calling. So:
- Speaking using FaceTime, Zoom or Teams over onboard Wi-Fi is supposed to be made illegal, DOT proposed banning it, but no final rule appears to ever have been adopted. Airlines themselves generally ban it, though.
- Silent video conferencing – watching a videoconference – would not violate any government rule or proposed rule.
Inflight Calling Is Actually Fine
I want to take conference calls inflight all the time – where I’m just an observer, on mute, or even muted. I want to listen to earnings calls, or media briefings. I hate when Zoom and similar platforms are blocked at the server level.
Most people aren’t a nuisance making inflight calls or taking inflight conference calls. People are actually, overall, much quieter doing this than talking to seatmates.
- There are jerks. Those people stand out more. Jerks have all kinds of other behavioral issues, too.
- We shouldn’t make rules for everyone based on the jerks, we should address the jerks.
Numerous airlines around the world allow inflight cell phone use on board, and the parade of horribles many worry about never happened. And calls can be really important.
Amtrak lets people use cell phones with passengers confined closely together. People talk to each other on planes now and those around them hear it! Sometimes the conversations you hear are even interesting
Government Should Not Regulate This
The original FAA rule on cell phones inflight was about safety, not nuisance. Wifi is allowed at all times. Planes had seat back Airfones, and those were permitted. Speaking in the sky has never been banned.
Congress said to pass a rule against it because people broadly don’t like it. That’s what’s wrong with your preferences, taking away freedom from others who haven’t even done anything wrong. Being an annoying jerk is a problem.
Being a polite listener on a zoom call, speaking softly isn’t a problem either. This shouldn’t be a matter of law. Airlines should be able to set their own rules, and I know if I want to listen to a call (with ear buds, speaking briefly and softly on a limited basis if at all) I should be able to choose a carrier that permits this.
It’s Time To Allow Inflight Calls
Last night I flew from Washington National airport to Dallas – Fort Worth to Austin. My first flight took a mechanical delay and I missed my connection. We had one of those 16 minute taxis after landing in Dallas, and I had to get from the mid-A gates to low B-gates. I made it prior to departure but after doors close, and the gate agents were already gone.
I figured I wasn’t going to make it, but I decided to sprint anyway – after all American says they’ll sometimes hold flights now for connecting passengers. That seemed a long shot here, because it wasn’t the last flight of the night. But I really did want to make it to Austin on my original flight because it meant I’d make it home while my daughter was still awake.
That wasn’t going to happen, but it would have been nice to actually tell her goodnight right as she went to bed. Fortunately, she was still up during my extended layover, but often that’s not the case. There are real human connection moments that can happen when people are allowed to speak.
Here’s an example where a woman might have been able to stop her husband’s suicide if flight crew hadn’t prevented her from making a call. We used to be allowed to use Airfones for this, but it was expensive. Now that it’s so much less costly we don’t allow it. And that’s a shame. Does anyone out there agree with me?
Gary,
SERIOUSLY??? Your cute little anecdotes are nice but you cannot really beleive that the majority of people who will take advantage of using their phone will not be idiots. I’m hoping that the majority of airlines/FAA will not agree to allow this. I’m a 2MM miler on DL and would walk away if they agree and look for an airline that would ban calls. God forbid even AA.
Inflight call zone – put it right where the smoking section used to be
I take MS teams calls in flight all the time on my headphones and no one even notices.
Given the incredible rudeness and lack of common sense among a great number of the flying public on flights today, that is a Hard NO!
@Barry Lieberman good for you, but you are not most people and most people would not be so considerate. I have ZERO interested in calls on planes. Is something is so important it can’t wait, don’t get on the plane.
The problem is we don’t address the jerks. Those of us who aren’t are often compelled to suffer in silence. Been to an airport, a grocery store, even a doc office lately? People are conversing on open speakerphone’s everywhere. Will this be worse for the Frontier and Spirit experience? Undoubtedly. But until flight crews show some backbone about enforcement of common courtesy, I’m not optimistic even on the quality airlines.
Flying is the same as driving. What looked like regular people turn into annoying idxxxs and forget all about other people (cutting you off, turn without signal, ….) why would you think people will be considerate.
People aren’t considerate…imagine the displeasure of listening to someone loudly explaining how important they are or sharing their vocabulary of obscene…
It is an opportunity for the same obnoxious people who insist on flooding the cabin with light on long daytime transatlantic flights…they’re out there.
Please, god, no. It’s one thing to passively listen to a call or a videoconference, but it’s another thing to speak. We know from everyday life that most people speak far louder into the phone than they actually need to. And how many people have we seen in the grocery store or on the bus who insist on using their phone on speaker (these people are rude, but it’s fun to start engaging in their conversation because, oh I’m sorry it was on speaker I thought it was a call for all of us). Flying has enough issues and enough bad behavior, we do not need to enable this too.
If there is a regulation on how (and who’s going) to deal with jerks, then maybe. But, “NO’ without those strict rules … which I have no idea what they would be or how to implement them, so probably “NO”. I do like the idea of back of the plane section for conference calls. Let them bother and interrupt each other.
Bad call, Gary. Allowing calls is a bad call. Pun intended.
@ Gary — You are wrong on this one. There are too many rude jerks to allow this.
In my business, we use RingCentral and I’ve had my phone ring a few times inflight (oops) and I’ve even been able to take a call once! FB Messenger & some Whatsapp calls have accidentally made it thru, and as someone else mentioned, Teams & Google Meetings seem to not be blocked (yet).
As much as my libertarian soul agrees with you, my frequent flyer side is like “HELL NO”. Can you imagine being on Spirit and hearing eveyrone’s phone calls? The American public is sadly not polite or courteous, by any means, and I think this will just become one, huge insulated phone booth.
Not only no, but NO WAY IN HE** no! Are people so lazy, stupid, and addicted to their STUPID UN-SMART phones they cannot make a simple several hour flight without using them? You do NOT NEED to stream, talk or use that infernal phone. Just sit calmly, read, take a nap. Docwhst NORMAL INTELLIGENT people have done for eons. There should be no WiFi service, period, on any flight less than 5 hours. And only available in the business/first class area for over 5 hours, providing said airplanes have a solid partition, including a door, between that area and general flight seating areas.
No. This is a wretched idea. FA’s already can’t control passengers. Phone calls already destroy club lounge experiences, now you want them to wake you up mid-flight? No thanks.
Get your own room and sure you can make a call. The seat next to me isn’t a conference room
It’s my emotional support phone you bigots. I can use it any time I want and anyway I want. If you don’t like my loud voice while I’m zooming that’s YOUR problem. Your feelings mean nothing – don’t you understand it’s all about MEEEEEE.
Let people make/take calls inflight? Are you fuc*ing nuts? Can you imagine having 100 plus people screaming into a cell with no headphones? I’m hopeful that no US domestic airline is dumb enough to allow such a thing. Can you imagine a Spirit and Frontier flight? Every third flight would be diverted.
In listen only mode to a Teams Calls yeah no one knows. Screaming to Jethro or Tyschaca that you’re an airport plane everyone would know.
Well, if you ever wanted to totally discredit your “Thought Leader in Travel” claim, Gary, you’ve certainly done it. This is one of the most thoughtless posts I’ve ever read about air travel. It’s guaranteed to displease and inconvenience far more travelers than it will benefit. It will be exploited by the rudest among us. It will lead to lots of disputes about passengers talking too loud and too long. And it will put extra burdens on the poor FAs who have to police rude passengers’ misconduct and those resulting disputes.
Just a lousy idea all around.
Oh lord no.Too many people in airports and on flights already have too little self-awareness and self-control. Don’t you hear them pre-takeoff and at landing? We don’t need an additional blank check on rudeness.
The reason you can’t make calls is that the previous FAA reauthorization had a clause in there as a result of lobbying by the flight attendants Union to a few senators.
It is a ridiculous law and I saw that the most recent reauthorization didn’t mention this so I’m wondering if it’s even valid anymore.
As for those that think it will disturb them, there are plenty of other things that can annoy you such as people talking loudly to other passengers or to flight attendants, or distracting different movies showing on every screen. Nobody here complaining about loud calls mentions the fact that you can make calls when the plane lands and nobody seems to be complaining about that, as they didn’t when planes used to have phones.
April fools?
“We shouldn’t make rules for everyone based on the jerks, we should address the jerks.”
And how would you address them?
How do you enforce being considerate?
I’m a hard no.
We only allowed calls in the past because they were costly and rare. In today’s connected world, cheap calls in the sky would ruin the environment.
@Melissa — I sure hope that’s all this is… *facepalm*
@Gene — I think Gary does the ole “Marriott’s giving credits for not flushing/saving water” bit each April Fools, but is this a new one?
Please no I’m flight phone calls. People are already not considerate in public spaces – speaker phone etc. It would be chaotic if we let people make phone calls. Remember the term cell yell? That also still exists
I don’t want calls allowed.
I am considerate, as are the majority of passengers regardless of how often they fly, but the ones who aren’t will be a problem until a (mostly) foolproof solution ensuring calls do not disturb your neighbors as found. And like other kinds of disturbances most of them would be infrequent fliers who haven’t yet acquired the ettiquette/lore of being a commercial passenger, and are more likely to take offense when approached about their volume.
“…as long as people are considerate.”
Good one, Gary!
Very bad idea. People already talk loudly to each other (on the flight) in middle of the night. Imagine the “joy” of phone calls at all hours of the night and day,
Absolutely not. Gary, I know you are in lounges and witness the obnoxious behavior that goes on daily. And unlike a lounge, you can’t get up and move away. And then you get an angry, hostile seatmate following an uncomfortable ask to lower their voice. No thanks.
I don’t just say no I say HELLO no! You can effing text…. There is nothing that important for the most part.
But people won’t be “considerate”. They aren’t considerate in the lounge, in the waiting area, or anywhere else. The idea of those loud-mouths being able to witter on endlessly with or about their grand chilren, their latest big business deal, the ballgame they just saw on a plane sounds like the seventh circle of hell to me…
Hard no. Give it a break for a little while. Pleasure calls aside, life goes on if you can’t do a business call. Geez, there’s so much more to life.
Well the answer usually is follow the money trail. Is it a revenue item or a cost to the airline. If it is a cost to the airline they view it as does it give us a competitive advantage as they already know if they charge for it for revenue the ROI is negative and practically no one will pay. So if a competitor airline makes it FREE then they all need to keep up. It is airline MONEY BALL zero to do with safety…..Get a Gulfstream talk all you want non stop.
Vincent M. Wolanin, Chairman- Founder PrivateSky® Aviation Services, Inc. PrivateSky.net
“…as long as people are considerate.”
Man, that bit is holdinf a LOT of weight.
what Steve, Patrick and Mike P. said…and for the Love of all that’s Holy…NO!
As if flying and the entire process isn’t bad enough, you want to ad a plane full of people blaming away on their phones?
Count me out!
John Sousa
NO NO NO NO NO NO
So…to be clear – snark aside, I think the issue that might arise is a legal challenge to whether wifi-enabled calling still qualifies as a “safety” regulation.
My guess, as far as a test case goes, is that you get a properly equipped plane. Someone has an honest-to-God emergency and takes the call. The FA tells them to stop…and they say “sod off and charge me” (probably less politely). Tou linked to one such case where this might be applicable – let’s say for the sake of discussion that their sole call is to their home 911 dispatch
The airline hits them with an FAA complaint, but this person insists on fighting.
I can see a few possibilities at this point. If the FAA is smart they’ll refuse to pursue the matter (essentially carving out an implied exception). If they do, though, and the person keeps fighting I CAN see a case where the regulation gets struck down, or at least effectively forcibly reformulated, given Loper Bright (killing Chevron deference and potentially giving the courts more room to say “That’s not a safety issue anymore”).
Probably the single WORST idea of all time to allow people to make phone calls from the airplane. People are incredibly rude and no one has an indoor voice. I’m tired of listening to these loud obnoxious people who never use earphones or headphones and speaking extremely loudly and never shut their mouth up. I have to deal with it all the time in the Delta sky clubs. I would wanna stop flying if I had to deal with these people and there constant nonstop nauseating loud obnoxious telephone calls. The airplane is now the only safe zone from obnoxious people who if they knew most of us would never hire them on the basis of their behavior in the airport.
No. I do not agree with you. No PHONE CALLS inflight .
I will fight to stop this.
Ride AMTRAK, or drive and talk away.
@1990
Yes it is a bad call Gary.
Frankly, I would think that Gary is smart enough to go for the clicks on this one. But is soooo wrong. More and more, I have less faith/belief in my fellow citizens. ON ANY SUBJECT. To honestly believe that you can flip a switch and people will stop behaving like idiots, is…….. idiotic. Spirit and Frontier give proof to that EVERYDAY.
No goose for you Gary!
April fools …. or a naive fool?
In the spirit of this article, I think that videoconferencing should be allowed on planes, but ONLY for service dogs and toddlers in business class.
Only for dogs who poop on the plane, in the isle.
Hopefully this is a Aprils fool story, otherwise He’ll No!
Please NO! I do not want to listen to the rude and ignorant self-important people who NEED to have these loud conversations. They have zero consideration for those around them, they are THAT important!
NO! NO! NO! UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE!!!!!
another retarded take by Gary Leff… no foresight whatsoever… living in fairy dust lala land. Thinking that people will be considerate is at best naive.
Can anyone besides me recall when some airlines had the inflight phones at each seat? More than once some loudmouth jerk (or jerkess) would ramble on and on, rudely disturbing all other pax. I once heard a call some @sshole made that went on for 2/3 of the way between LAX and DFW. Since we all agree people can no longer control themselves, why allow another rage tinderbox on board?
This only makes sense to you and I suppose other biz travelers on short haul flights. Imagine long haul economy flights where the person next to you talks incessantly on the phone for 12 hours straight. Unlike conversations between passengers, where one is limited to talking only to the person next to them and runs out of subject matter pretty quickly, phone calls allows conversations with unlimited people, some people will never get off the phone.
Fun poisson d’Avril post. Feel free to step outside to make that phone call.
Got to be Arpil Fools. The only explaination for this post.
I first read this after just waking up and was incredibly puzzled. Had you lost your senses? Did you want people yammering into their phones all around you when you’re trying to work or rest?Then I thought about it. Maybe you were doing a rage porn piece or jok… wait, what day is this? Very nicely done, sir. You got me completely.
And kids this is why Amtrak had a passenger’s grass roots movement to have quiet cars. The most popular seats on the train. People are annoying. There I said it.
I forgot about air phones, and how they were prominently positioned on seat backs, and in the galley. On reflection, its heroic role it played during 9/11 as well. I remember using airphone on a CO 764 as I made my way from HNL to GUM. I remember using an airphone on a DL L1011 from DFW to HNL to let my family know I made the flight I was standing by for, and to pick me up at the airport. The technology has indeed been around!
But the customer paid to use airphones – Starlink is free and guaranteed everyone would want to “talk” in the air.
Politely disagree. Too many will abuse and very tight quarters.
Can you imagine trying to sleep too?
What day is it?
I strongly disagree. I live in New York City where many people take the time on the bus to have lengthy phone calls. It is even more irritating if they have their speakers on! I can’t imagine a long plane ride with someone or several travelers speaking throughout the flight.
ASSUME passengers will be considerate (Assume makes an ass out of u and me!).
NO!!! People are so LOUD on their phones. On purpose? They have no spatial awareness? I can’t stand sitting in the airport listening can’t imagine being confined on a plane with it.
YOU have lost your G D mind! To sit near any person who is SO insistent to make a telephone call and, to make is worse, puts it on speaker…BAT CRAP CRAZY! It is so annoying to be anywhere in public and have some goombah yelling into the cell phone, listening to the reply on the speakerphone. OR WORSE…listening to just the one side. There are two laws for aircraft in US airspace: One is the Federal Communications Commission rule: § 22.925 Prohibition on airborne operation of cellular telephones. Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes, balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground). When any aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that aircraft must be turned off. The other is the FAA: § 22.925 Prohibition on airborne operation of cellular telephones.Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes, balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground). When any aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that aircraft must be turned off. SO…definitive law against!
This April Fools joke is in about as bad taste as joking that you have ALS.
Poor choice.
Absolutely not! Every self important jerk will be talking loudly about his business deals or someone will be chatting up their BFF for hours. Bad enough that some people refuse to wear headphones while they watch videos.
“please be considerate.” I see “considerate” people at airports, lounges and aircraft all the time… sarc
Surely this is April Fools. People are generally too low-iq and/or rude to be considerate. This would be a nightmare for most of us who value relative quiet on a plane.
My niece can talk for an hour in the car and not shut up. 6 hrs in a plane i would kill her.
People can be so incredibly inconsiderate as a crew member I can tell you it would be a nightmare. Probably more inflight arguments we will have to address!.
Amtrak has a quiet car for a reason. Just because technology allows you to talk on the phone doesn’t mean you should do it in a confined space. I always assumed this rule was primarily to maintain decorum in the cabin and I see no reason to change it. Keep conversations to a minimum when you’re seated 18 inches from a stranger.
“Please be considerate” is not a phrase that most Americans can comprehend.
First of all who the hell are you to tell me you are wrong”YOU ARE WRONG” .. I make my own decisions. And then you wanna continue the argument and tell us that there are jerks and that will have to put up with them. People can’t even keep their socks on let alone keeping a headset on. I was going to go on, but all the other comments reflect my views, you are wrong!
Ok Gary, it’s no longer 4/1…. so please tell us… was this article real???
Gary, you must be kidding. I, for one (though I see from the comments that I’m not alone, REALLY appreciate not being forced to listen to half of someone’s phone call – whether it’s business or personal, I don’t want to hear it. And I don’t see why I should be forced to bring my own mitigation device.
Works great on JSX. But that’s 1X1, no one sitting next to anyone else, generally better class of passenger and a pretty loud airplane anyway so you can’t hear others.
Are we going to watch videos and play video games with no headphones next? Flight attendants should not turn into idiot police…
I think we all have strong opinions about voice calls on airplanes and trains or any other confined public space….Gary’s is just wrong. Remember when restaurants had phone booths and if you were really a VIP they would bring the corded phone to the table. Evidently that and one phone at both front and back of aircraft was prehistoric times for quite a few of the people on VFTW including the author.
As so many said, there will always be jerks and those jerks do not respond to lowering their voices. MAYBE if headphones are required for all online communication in flight, OK.
Economy has become a cattle car with crunched seating. That is enought annoyance for me. Don’t add phone access to that. Facetime apparently carries a pass for rude behavior. Do you really think people won’t use it on a plane? How would you like a transatlantic flight with someone chatting most of the night? What if your little kids were trying to sleep? I can think of several situations where phone calls are totally out. I was accosted recently by 2 parents and 2 grandparents because I asked if their small child could use headphones (because his tablet was unbearably loud). You should have heard the accusations. The child was hearing impaired, which then made no sense that he wasn’t using headphones. I didn’t bother the FAs because I knew what they would be dealt.
For some reason, passengers seem to have decreased their willingness to be polite and considerate on airplanes. We should not facilitate anger inside of a cylindrical metal tube, hurtling through the air. I am a lifetime premium elite flyer on a major airline. I would NEVER want to get on a plane with people will could and likely would (mis)use the phone. Never.
Passenger do not have the courtesy to not involve the whole plane on their call. It would be noise caos. I agree with the premise, but not the practical execution.
Dumbest idea since donald trump.
Totally lacks logic, common sense and void of any awareness of human behavior.
Want a test to see if this makes sense?
Ride a commuter train.
The first airline to ever approve this will NEVER see me again.
“We shouldn’t make rules for everyone based on the jerks, we should address the jerks.”
Unfortunately the jerks have taken over, so now we require jerk-level rules for everyone. Remember when logging in was simply a password? Jerks and crims ruined that and now we need 2FA plus fingerprint plus whatever.
Assuming this wasn’t just clickbait April Fool’s, the idea of calls on planes is horrific. If I want to listen to 5 self-important idiots yammering around me I can ride the bus. But at least on the bus I can change seats, or worst-case maybe change buses. The thought of being stuck over the ocean for hours with these blowhards is horrific!
Seems it’s very clear on the consensus from all the comments here. Technically why you can make a call or join video conference using Starlink inflight wifi because Starlink is not able block such apps and traffic – so another good example of a bug that becomes a feature. The current IFC providers have gone great lengths and put the investments to comply with such requirements albeit from regulatory or airline’s perspective, and its not easy to do and why sometimes people can still do this. Also do note some culture and country like in Japan, they do not allow phone calls even on trains and busses and they will never allow this inside a flying metallic tube. Major premium airlines that prioritise in protecting their branding via quiet cabin concept will not allow this too.
Lack of chairs had me sitting next to a woman in the lounge conducting her business in, while not really loud, a tone that was so annoying. There was one torn up chair that I almost moved to. To have to sit next to someone on the plane, who could possibly go on for hours, would be too much. By giving those people the chance to talk you have taken away a chance for quiet for seatmates. We are too close as it is PLEASE NO!!!!
No, just no! Don’t even get the conversation started. A plane is not a conference room. I don’t need to hear personal or business conversations when I’m either focusing on my work, watching a movie or trying to rest. Flying is stressful enough, please don’t introduce a live phone conversation into the mix.
SOME OF US love the fact that being on a flight makes us unavailable and that is something that is universally understood. It’s a great time to REST…which will be impossible with a bunch of people speaking louder and louder to hear on their own call over everyone else’s call plus plane noise.
SOME OF US like to use this semi quiet time to read.
SOME OF US realize that, and this will blow your mind…some of us realize that there is absolutely NO CALL that is a do or die when you’re on a plane 35,000 feet into the atmosphere on a flying metal tube. NO ONE is that important (but those who think they are will be the loudest).
You are a moron
Bad enough that we have people that can take a phone away from their face while walking in an airport to letting them talk on the phone. Yea then they’ll be FaceTiming and in a speaker though their not supposed to be and let alone talking in a loud voice
If they ever allow this I will stop flying.
I really don’t want to hear thay little Billy went poppy on the potty go the fist time.
No. No way. Too many people are rude and inconsiderate, talking loudly, talking constantly, sharing personal information and generally going on and on about some useless jibber jabber. Being seated next to or near one of these people is a traveler’s NIGHTMARE!!!!!!
Any airline that allowed such calls would instantly rise to the top of my “do not fly” list.
Absolutely NO!
This poorly written article sounds like it is coming from just the kind of entitled weenie who thinks he should be talking during the entire flight.
Make them sit all the way in the back, no exception! No, first class or business, sorry. When booking flights, you can only get seat in the last available row. Make up your mind what is more important, first class or a phone call or zoom meeting. Then they must be on headsets with microphones, no exception, and flight attendant has the final say if your to loud or the conversation is inappropriate.
This is about as smart as legalizing crack cocaine and heroin. What could go wrong?!?
Not just no but hell no. We already have 200 people crammed in a very small space with service animals, fussy kids, crying babies, announcement for advertising credit cards, and now you want to add 200 people trying to make a phone call at the same time?
I would absolutely boycott any airline that allowed voice phone calls on the airplane in the air, it’s bad enough, listening to them while we’re on the ground at the gate.
No to phone calls; we already have to put up with people who can’t keep their dogs in their carriers, let them poop in their cages and pretend nothing happened, let their kids kick the back of seats repeatedly with no interference and who thinks you should not recline because they bought the cheapest seat they could. I’d prefer if they bought back smoking rather than let most folks, who appear to more obnoxious when they are on a phone than when they talk to you directly.
This is a terrible idea. You think people are going off the hook now, wait until some mouth breather is yacking away loudly on a flight and gets slapped.
I have traveled a bit in my time and are a million miler in two programs………the day they allow calling…..is the day I drop that airline from my options.
Gary, did you write this on April 1st.? It’s a joke, right? Do you really fly on planes? Sitting near multiple conversations is bad enough. I can’t imagine conversations all over the plane. There is no way talking in a low voice will happen. The majority of people think they need to speak loudly on a cell phone to be heard. Allowing phone use on a plane would be a total nightmare.
I hope, if you were serious, you will take the huge number of negative comments to heart and CHANGE YOUR MIND….. Please! I hope this is NEVER allowed so we can all keep our sanity.
1000% no. People already exhibit very bad behavior on phones when allowed (i.e. during boarding). People have no idea how loud and disruptive they can be (often even more when using headphones). There could be a row by the back lav for those who want to talk. That should really include those who want to talk to seatmates, as that can be equally or more loud than calls during flight. Otherwise, nope. Should all be a quiet zone except when being addressed by a FA.
The FAA previously looked into allowing passengers to use phones onboard and frequent travelers whom they polled were overwhelmingly against it because they really didn’t want to be interrupted by phone calls while in the air.
I dont want phone calls on planes… I travel business so probably will not be inconvenienced but anyone in Economy will have a dozen conversations going around them at anytime… Not Good.
Gary, you have lost your mind!
Hard no! Gary, your bio says that you’re one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel. Really? You think calls while flying on a commercial airliner is a good idea? Are you friends with Musk? Crazy idea.
I agree with all the “no’s”. There are way more jerks in the world, than considerate people. But maybe if the jerks were thrown out the door, I could change my mind.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Absolutely NOT
You left out the part where you’re on a 17 hour flight to Singapore and are seated next to one of those “jerks”.
The race to the bottom continues apace & the ability for the totally inconsiderate to be able to hold telephone conversations & soon calls etc makes air travel even worse. A eight to ten hour flight with Mr or Mrs or it talking to all and sundry will only result in a number of them leaving the aircraft with their iPhone either in their anal passage or half way down their throat . Believe me I been travelling world wide for 65 years and have witnessed how low we’ve sunk .
Obviously you don’t travel for a living. NFWthey should allow people to make calls. Tourists and some rude business travelers will be talking at the top of their lungs because they can’t hear. It’s bad enough already that people stream music to their phones without headphones, now you want to let those same people make phone calls? NFW
This is either click-bait or you simply have zero empathy for the people around you. Half the people you encounter when traveling are hanging on by a thread and that cabin is the only respite some people get from a relentless litany of phone calls. So, feel free to keep your opinions to yourself, or not, because I can’t conceivably take any of your opinions serious moving forward.
Gary Leff is, once again, wrong.
echo previous comment……no……no……..no……..no……..no!!!!!
thank you!!!
I am so glad that I retired and no longer take multiple flights per week if this becomes an acceptable activity. Any amount of decorum from most flyers left a long time ago. The only thing this will do is create more violence and rude behavior. I feel sorry for flight crews if they have to deal with this
I certainly hope that NEVER happens. People are way to rude, inconsiderate & obnoxious to ever have in flight calling be ok. Just like in restaurants , theaters, & many other public venues where people use their phones & are totally rude & obnoxious. Sure hope this does NOT happen in my lifetime!
Here’s an idea, this was written on “A view from the wing”, why don’t you take your call out on the wing and save the rest of us from listening to you?
Absolutely not. I’d rather have them rip out the Starlink than allow voice calls or videoconferencing during flights. NO NO NO. You are insane to even suggest it.