Use of Electronic Devices on Planes Still Won’t Be OK All the Time, Airline Industry Says
LAS VEGAS -- Even though the Federal Aviation Administration has decided in favor of passengers using tablets and other portable electronic devices (PEDs) during takeoff and landing, and all aircraft will be “PED friendly,” passengers will still be told to put their devices away some of the time, said Capt. Bill de Groh, an airline pilot representing the Air Line Pilots Association, Thursday at CES. In October, the FAA announced that airlines can allow the use of electronic devices during all aspects of flight, based on recommendations by the PED Aviation Rulemaking Committee. On Dec. 12, the FCC approved an NPRM seeking comment on cellphone use on airplanes.
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Not all aircraft will be PED-tolerant, de Groh said. “Until new airplanes overtake the old ones, if your crew asks you to turn off PEDs please do that; there is a reason for it.” ALPA also supports the FAA’s looking more in-depth at whether all PEDs should be stored just before takeoff and landing on the grounds that they could otherwise turn into deadly projectiles. Pilots are also concerned about passengers not taking off headphones during safety briefings, de Groh said. “It is unnatural to go flying in an airplane and we've become very accustomed to it because it is so safe."
The airlines as a group are working to get most of their fleet certified as PED-friendly, said Tim Shaver, avionics maintenance branch manager at the FAA. Carriers covering 95 percent of the U.S. flying public have filed paperwork to get certified so passengers can use their tablets in all aspects of flight, he said. While each aircraft model has to be certified as PED-tolerant, about 86 percent of the fleet used by large carriers has already passed tests, he said. “We have a lot to do yet,” he said. “We want to make sure that airplanes as they're developed in the future continue to be tolerant of PED emissions."
As for cellphones on planes, Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, said the agency welcomes any feedback from the public on its proposal to allow cellphone use in-flight. Phones would use picocells, which create a separate network inside the plane. “Even if this rule were changed the decisions … whether to implement these picocells on aircraft would be up to the airlines,” Knapp said. “The technology has the capability to block voice if they have the capacity to do that."
"The airline community is really ready to support what our passengers are really asking for, which is connectivity,” said Kirk Thornburg, a safety official with Delta Air Lines. “Each and every U.S. carrier is looking at that formula. We generally want to leave the marketplace open to that.” Delta supports texting and other data use in-flight, but not voice, he said. “Mostly that’s customer-driven,” he said. “Our customers have told us they're not ready to be sitting on an airplane in a tube in the air with someone right next to them holding a conversation on a cellphone.”