Gadling

What is so different about talking into a cell phone than talking to the pax next to you?

If I talk to the guy next to me, nobody gets angry. If I speak to my children at the same volume to tell them that daddy loves and and wish them good night, why does that incense people?

Why is it that the exact same FA's in europe would threaten you will jail for harming the navigation system in the airplane a few months ago, but now that the airline charges for using their in-plane cell antenna you suddenly aren't harming the navigation system?

If it is dangerous, why has not one of the dozens of attempts of putting hundreds of brands of cell phones right next to navigation equipment ever shown any effect?

If it is dangerous, why does every major airline fly right over cell towers, tv towers and radio towers on every take off and landing? If the inside of the plane weren't completely filled with RF, your phone and radio wouldn't work on the ground.

I think the yelling at pax to turn off cell phones is just ammunition for the FA's to wind themselves up and yell at more pax.

I think they should worry about more important things, like the extremely high risk of death I'm putting myself in if I my seatback is reclined an extra 5 degrees on landing or taking away my bagel because it has cream cheese, or x-raying millions of shoes a day in machines that cannot detect explosives.

Of course, while you can't bring a gel on, you can bring a block of hard cheese, because as far as the TSA research has shown, something needs to be moist to be explosive.

I guess it does make sense to ban cream cheese, because with the ban on cigarette lighters lifted we could all use the extra space for our lighters.

But in all seriousness, there is a very good point to all these rules. You see, we wouldn't have comedy without them.

Reply