Europe approves use of in-flight electronics during take-off and landing

How many flights take off or land with all passengers and crew members in full compliance with the current rules? Close to none.<p>Say commercial planes have 60 passengers&#x2F;crew member in average. 5 don&#x27;t have any devices (small kids). Of the 55 passengers that have one or more devices, maybe 30 turn off their devices as they are told, 15 put them on airplane mode and 10 don&#x27;t give a shit or just forget it.<p>If there are 20 million flights per year there have been some 400 million flights in the 20 years where cell phones have been common. 400 million flights of which 99 percent have flown with some passengers&#x27; phones turned on. Has there ever been a single flight accident due to cell phones? Just one?

I was recently on a transatlantic flight during which our Boeing 767&#x27;s right jet engine caught fire and blew out. It was a terrible experience and I can assure you that at least for the first 5-10 minutes nobody on the plane was buried in their books or personal electronics. Everyone was suppressing panic and desperately paying attention to whatever shreds of information we could get from the flight attendants. The whole excuse about wanting people to pay attention during an emergency is total crap. Once your body kicks into survival mode the last thing on your mind is your phone.

Seems clearly to have been done in reaction to, or in cooperation with the change in the US.<p>I wonder why no European or other country got out in front and made this change earlier?

Not that someone was obeying those rules anyway. But better to make it official.

I have been doing this for years on my gameboy&#x2F;sega&#x2F;iphone&#x2F;ipad&#x2F;mac. I even turned my airplane mode off to see how long it would take to loose service last time I flew. (I dont fly very often)

I&#x27;ve always wondered why they had this rule in the first place. Each wireless device by FCC rules (or equivalent dept in each country) must operate withing a designated RF frequency range.<p>One would think that pilots would use a frequency range that would be in the private (not public like Wifi 2.4&#x2F;5.x Gh) range and thus never be overlapped.<p>What am I missing?

I just got home from my first trip since the FAA changed their rules, and it was really quite refreshing not to be able to continue using [non-radio] devices. Among other things, I think it generally calms the passengers and makes them less unruly.

Skymall is fucked.

Such a bunk rule anyways. If there was the remotest chance of a phone &#x2F; kindle &#x2F; whatever interfering with in-flight systems, bringing any electronics onboard would be expressly forbidden. They&#x27;d take them away from you at the security screening (like they do with the extremely dangerous water bottles and nail clippers these days..)

As long as they never allow anyone to talk on their cellphone during flights, I&#x27;m happy.