FOCUS: UNFRIENDLY SKIES
Is no place safe from cell phones?
Ubiquitous device may soon find its way into an airline passenger seat near you
After all the indignities of taking off your shoes and belt, waiting in lines, paying extra to check your bag, you’ve finally stuffed yourself into the middle seat of a sold-out flight.
The plane slowly rises to cruising altitude, and you’re about to settle into a novel, when the strains of “Copacabana” ring out from a cell phone in the next seat over.
Before you know it, some lunkhead is talking about his love life, or a personal medical problem, and you don’t have any way to escape.
“If you have someone who’s a loud talker, or a screamer, or going through something traumatic on the phone, that could be nerve-wracking,” said Rick Abramson, president of Delaware North Cos.’ Sportservice, the concessions giant, who travels every week for work.
Think this nightmare scenario can never happen? Think again.
While cell phone use on airplanes remains prohibited in this country, the European Union this summer approved it for flights in Europe and testing on a few carriers has begun.
The decision could lead to policy changes here, even though concerns for safety and network interference remain.
While the thought of cell phone conversations on planes makes some queasy, many frequent fliers would like to send e-mails and text messages or use the Web on their phones or laptops.
In fact, several airlines in this country are beginning to provide Web access to passengers in trial runs that could be expanded to their entire fleets.
“We’ll see how much customers value it,” Southwest Airlines spokesman Chris Mainz said.
Even at 30,000 feet, travelers want to be connected to their homes and offices.
Last bastion of quiet
But bringing the Internet and — possibly, someday — cell phones to airplanes would eliminate one of the planet’s few areas of relative silence.
“Gosh, it’s like our last bastion of ‘don’t talk to me,’ ” said Michael Galante, a manager in communications for Rich Products, who travels once or twice a month for business.
Cell phone use is banned in the airspace over this country while planes are in flight by both the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission.
The FAA’s ban is based on concerns that the radio signals given off by cell phones could “unintentionally affect aircraft communications, navigation, flight control and electronic equipment,” according to an FAA fact sheet.
The FCC, on the other hand, is worried that cell phone users aboard planes could interfere with the cellular network on the ground, said Matthew Nodine, an FCC spokesman.
The EU voted in April to allow cell service on flights.
Calls will go through a base station on the plane — essentially a small cell tower — linked to a satellite and then to cell networks on the ground, according to the Associated Press.
Phone service will be blocked when planes are taking off and landing, but will be allowed once planes pass 10,000 feet.
Officials say cell phone service on planes has been tested thoroughly, and carriers including Air France-KLM, British Midland Airways, the Portuguese airline TAP and Ryanair plan to allow the service this year.
Dimitrios A. Pados, a professor of electrical engineering at the University at Buffalo, said he thinks the issue of interference with the ground cell network could be easily controlled by wireless providers.
And he said concerns that cell phones and other electronic devices can interfere with aircraft communication or navigation systems might be overstated.
“I am not aware of any documented cases where there has been a safety issue,” Pados said.
Both the FCC and FAA have participated in studies of cell phone safety on airplanes, but have not yet reversed their bans and have no plans at this point to change the policy.
Further, several members of Congress are backing legislation that would permanently ban cell phones on planes.
If the FAA and FCC do change their minds, it would be up to the individual airlines to decide whether to introduce cell phones to their planes.
Mainz said Southwest would consider this move, but only if customers want it.
JetBlue would be willing to explore this change but said passenger feedback to date is overwhelmingly opposed to the idea, said Alison Eshelman, a JetBlue spokeswoman.
“The quiet, onboard experience is something that our customers prefer,” she said.
Passenger opinion mixed
A 2007 survey conducted by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics found that opinion on cell phones aboard airplanes is mixed.
About 40 percent of survey respondents said cell phones should definitely or probably be allowed during flights, while 45 percent said they probably or definitely should not be allowed. The other 15 percent weren’t sure.
People who travel frequently for business told The Buffalo News they don’t want to be forced to overhear cell phone calls in the air.
Air travel already can be uncomfortable, and adding loud conversations to the mix would just make it worse, others said.
“It’s startling to me how discourteous people can be without cell phones,” said Thomas A. Kucharski, president of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise.
In the airport, on the street, you can walk away from someone engaged in an obnoxious phone call. Not so on an airplane.
“If half of the plane was talking on their cell phone, it could get very annoying,” said Doug Dimitrioff, a Phillips Lytle law firm partner and president of the New York State Wireless Association trade group.
However, Dimitrioff said he would like to be able to check e-mail or text messages, joking “I’m hooked on my BlackBerry.
If a system could be set up to allow cell phone access to electronic messages, while barring phone conversations, that would be fine, many travelers said.
Allowing Internet access on planes is a more popular notion, and wireless Web service on planes isn’t banned by the FCC or FAA.
“An airline can install a system to allow access to the Web, but the carrier has to demonstrate that it will not interfere with an aircraft’s communications and navigation systems,” FAA spokesman Jim Peters said in an e-mail.
The FCC allows Web service on flights, while banning cell service, because the Wi-Fi Internet operates at a different wavelength and is less likely to cause interference, said Nodine, the FCC spokesman.
JetBlue last December started providing access to Yahoo! e-mail and instant messaging on one plane in its fleet, known as “BetaBlue.” In June, it expanded the service to include Microsoft Exchange e-mail and other Web e-mail providers.
Users sent 100,000 messages over the first six months of the program, Eshelman said, and JetBlue is considering offering it fleetwide or providing full Web access as well.
Southwest will start offering the Internet on four of its planes later this year.
While many people have to be connected at all times, others use the time on a plane to detach from the wired world. “It’s a sanctuary for me in some ways,” said Sportservice’s Abramson.
If cell phones do come to domestic flights, will airlines install phone and nonphone sections?
“It certainly would help the sale of noise-reducing headphones,” Rich Products’ Galante joked.
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