U.S. officials at odds over cell phone use on planes

Cell phone use onboard an airplane on the ground or in-flight is an uber-bad idea. It's bad enough sitting in a public place and some inconsiderate butthead is talking away at high volume like they are at home. In-flight physical fights will happen and could jeopardize the safety of crew, passengers or the aircraft.

Yeah, letting people talk on phones is a recipe for disaster. However, using their phones for anything other than voice conversation should be allowed.

In the first place, why do you need to use a cell phone onboard ?? But..unless emergency or in some situation...permission allowed...

I think the issue you see here is the Government regulation vs the airline to decide whether or not to allow such a practice.

The original ban was there was a false thought that cellphone useage could bring down an airplane because the network would interfere with electronics on the aircraft. No airplane has ever crashed because someone left their phone on. FCC and many foreign aviation authorities have investigated this matter and shown it to be false. Thus there is no reason for the government to regulate this. It should be up to the airlines to allow it or not. If not for voice, than data, and text messaging should be allowed vs paying 20bux for wifi on the plane.

Plenty of reasons people would want to make calls, especially business people, single travelers, updates on changed plans & delays but it would be disruptive during the flight as the caller would be trying to speak above the ambient noise of the aircraft. Most of the time you can only speak to people comfortably who are right next to you. It would seem to me that texting / emails should be sufficient to let people know you've made the flight or that you will be late, etc. Perhaps limit actual conversations to the point of push back before take off and wheels down for landing. I wouldn't have a problem with this and these times, along with texts/emails would certainly cover all the scenarios I've encountered in my years of travel. I think actually some frequent travelers enjoy the fact that they are out of contact during flights, so they can actually relax. Imagine if your boss, co-workers and customers know that internet access is ubiquitous on flights. I suppose that time is approaching and in 5-10 years from now we'll think it quaint that this was an issue at all.

As if people are incapable of having conversations that annoy others with both people right there next to you! Why not just ban talking on the plane?

As high tech as cell phones are, I got a low tech tip for you. There are these things called "ear plugs". You can purchase them or make them yourself. Cuts out annoying conversations no matter the medium of that conversation. Your welcome.

Tell you what though. If I can have my water, shampoo, nail clippers and pocket knife back, I will support keeping the ban on cell phones!

I vote 'no' on the use of cell phones for voice on the plane. People do tend to talk louder than normal when using a cell phone; I find having to listen to them quite irritating.

People do tend to talk louder than normal when using a cell phone

So what is needed is education, not a ban on cell phones.