Sunday, October 14, 2007

Use an iPhone during the flight? Better not...

...or else you risk getting arrested. The iPhone is not the only device that during a flight allows you to turn off emission of radio waves. I had that with a Sony Ericsson, I remember... and also, most PCs I know of will allow you to disable bluetooth and WiFi electromagnetic wave radiation. Not to interfere with the aircraft's navigation and other instruments so that you don't head for Prague instead of Nairobi where you initially boarded the aircraft for, so to say...

Read this story, for some Sunday laughs; here an appetizer bit:

"...I am an iPhone owner, and this is my story. I recently was traveling to Hawaii on ATA airlines and took my iPhone along for the trip. During the first 2 hours of my 5 hour flight I was listening to music using the ipod function of my iPhone. The iPhone was sitting on my tray table in front of my seat, in plain sight. Then I decided to watch a movie. So I fired up the classic "I know what you did last summer", a movie I had never seen before. About 1 and a half hours into this cinematic masterpiece I had a flight attendant try to get my attention.

I paused the movie just as Jennifer love Hewitt was screaming something about "please stop killing my friends" or "what do you want from me", honestly I am not sure what she was saying because I paused the movie and looked to see what the flight attendant wanted. He said something to the effect of "you can't use a cell phone in flight". OK, that makes sense, so I assured him that I had the phone in airplane mode and that all cell, wifi and bluetooth was off.

He again said "you have to stop using it" and walked on... Now I know something about flying and the rules, and I am pretty sure I can use the MP3 part of a cell phone if it is in airplane mode, above 10,000 feet. So, I continued to watch, needing to find out who the killer with the hook was and why they were messing with J Love.

About 10 minutes later, the same guy comes back and waves his hand in front of my face, I pause the movie again, and look over at him. He says that I am not allowed to use a cell phone in flight and I am breaking FAA rules. Again I tell him I have the phone in airplane mode, and would be more than happy to show that to him. He didn't want to see it and said I am breaking FAA rules...."

I can't help thinking that airlines need to start doing some IQ and EQ testing on flight attendant candidates. It will save them loads of embarrassment.

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