Hopes by passengers to enjoy the liberty to use their smartphones during flights to make or receive calls have been dashed, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the United States’ telecommunications regulator, has reversed itself on earlier plans to permit such calls.
Although this is primarily directed at flights in the US, like many regulatory moves, this will have a global effect, as other countries and regions are likely to follow given global aviation’s interconnectedness.
The FCC confirmed that it is ready to scrap the plans that would have allowed users to forgo those flight safe smartphone warnings and use their handsets at 30,000 feet or above.
Putting aside the plan, the FCC Chairman, a Republican, Ajit Pai, said on April 11, 2017:
“I do not believe that moving forward with this plan is in the public interest. Taking it off the table permanently will be a victory for Americans across the country who, like me, value a moment of quiet at 30,000 feet.”
Pai emphasised further:
“I stand with airline pilots, flight attendants, and America’s flying public against the FCC’s ill-conceived 2013 plan to allow people to make cellphone calls on planes,” he said in a statement.
This indeed, is a reversal of the plan made during the Obama Administration in 2013. And, with the agency having been deliberating the move since 2013, the FCC Chairman Pai has now told the commission the plan should be completely removed from the table and in-flight smartphone usage remained on the banned list.
The move was first lobbied by former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler who, in 2013, suggested the lifting of the ban would be focussed on whether or not smartphone calls would cause technical disruption to a plane’s in-flight systems.
According to Pai, however, the reason to block the move is more of an emotional than a technical one.
“I fear what I’d do with my cutlery,” Pai quoted disgruntled passengers as saying to the proposed 2013 plan, claiming passengers would get annoyed sat next to someone making loud phone calls.
“Although I’m pretty sure that I could resist the urge to stab a fellow passenger, I understand these sentiments and share these concerns,” he added.
While the chairman has had his say, FCC commissioners must now vote on whether Pai’s order to permanently scrap in-flight smartphone calls should be backed or not.
Leading global airlines, like Emirates of the United Arabs Emirates, already permit in-flight calls on some long haul flights. And, although this was expected to be extended further, the latest move by the FCC as spearheaded by its Chairman Pai, could potentially put a final stop on such hopes.
Back in the US, it’s been 26 years since the FCC first enacted a ban on phone calls aboard aeroplanes, over concerns of cellphone signals interfering with aircraft communications systems.
That’s no longer a concern as many planes now have their own cellphone towers on board for delivering in-flight entertainment content. But the ban will remain in place because some passengers are opposed to being trapped in a metal tube with several people on the phone – and that includes FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who has proposed an order to keep the ban on voice calls over cellular services.