One of the best things about flying may be the inability for nearby passengers to blabber away on their phones during your flight. That may be about to change if the U.S. Transportation Department has its way.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, federal regulators are considering allowing voice calls to be made during flights, but the ability to make calls during flights would be at the discretion of the airlines. Calls would likely only be made over WiFi connections, as WiFi becomes more and more the norm on flights. For now, this is merely a proposal and this is not a sign that anything is going to change on your upcoming flights in the next few months or so. And, perhaps fortunately, the Transportation Department wants to get a look at how the public reaction to such a change might be.
Enter Twitter, where reception to this possibility is pretty definitive in this sampling…
Phone calls on flights = no escape.
— Marlene Stringer (@MarleneStringer) December 8, 2016
FAA might allow phone calls on flights? NO NO NO
— Don (@tokenwhitedude) December 8, 2016
Please Please @FAANews do not allow in flight phone calls on commercial flights
— Luke Brewer (@TheLukeBrewer) December 8, 2016
https://t.co/6pcE9BBxae You want to see chaos in the skies? Let us be trapped next to some loudmouth on a phone the whole flight…
— Economic Growth DC (@GrowthDC) December 8, 2016
@Delta @AmericanAir @united #AllAirlines please do not let people make phone calls on flights. Too many loud people without care for others
— Ron Giovanni (@RonTriangle) December 9, 2016
If this proposal does come to be official, it would be very interesting to see how airlines handle it. Would some airlines offer flights strictly prohibiting phone calls and others where it is allowed? Would you want to pay more for the ability to make phone calls in the air, or more for the ability to fly without such nonsense going on around you? Even if this proposal passes, airlines should expect to do some trial and error themselves with this. I know I would do almost anything to be on a plane where nobody can use a phone to make calls. What would you do?