Cell phones must now be completely turned off on flights in Europe?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 8 Aug, 2023
- |
I find this hard to believe. Some european airlines (e.g. Ryanair) have a little phone base station on the plane, so you can roam onto their network and make phone calls while in flight. Since they allow you to make phone calls during some of the time on some flights, it can’t be the case that they are banned.
On a series of flights in the UK this week with BA, the rules were still the standard:
No electronic devices during taxi, take-off or landing Electronic
devices with a flight safe mode acceptable during the flight
I can’t understand why they would change that rule – from a technical risk standpoint it is already accepted that mobile phones remaining on during flight isn’t a security risk, but actually just causes the phone network some issues.
I call BS.
From Civil Aviation Authority website:
Portable Electronic Devices
The use of portable electronic devices for sending and receiving data
and voice calls is not permitted on board aircraft after they have
closed their doors.It may be possible to use a portable electronic device that has a
transmitting facility in-flight, provided the transmitting facility is
de-activated. This is often referred to as ‘flight safe mode’ or
‘airplane mode’.Some airlines allow customers to use portable electronic devices for
transmitting data and calls if the aircraft is fitted with a system
that supports this, but there may charge for this facility.
If you are flying with a low-cost airline or one that provides additional paid-for “services” on board (meals, drinks, sky shops, entertainment) then this airline “policy” makes economics sense (to them), but you can point out that since the Aviation Authority explicitly allows usage of devices in non-transmitting mode, they might as well STFU and leave you alone.
If you are an EU citizen, I’m sure your local European Consumer Center would like to hear from you. You might also want to check the Is it Fair? initiative, where there are some helpful information on how to signal about unfair business practices.
On a flight from Bergamo to Istanbul, on 6th Feb 2012 same rules were applied. They explicitly told that flight mode is not allowed. The airline was Pegasus Airlines.
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Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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