In flight phone calls

[Skoogle]

Like most commenters here, I'd be happy NOT to have to put up with other people's conversations in-flight, but SMS and (especially) data access would be useful (albeit expensive!)

I don't have a problem with voice calls. Calls can be made now and I haven't seen any issue with it. Costs will be the limiting factor.

It will be the SMSs that I will dislike. With hundreds of personalised tones going off through-out the flight - it will drive me crazy. It only takes one fool with a loud sms tone to wake up the cabin.

 

[ejb]

Perhaps all phones are to be set to silent and then sms will not bother other pax.

I am all for sms but would be anti phone call.

ejb

 

[2muchplastic]

Perhaps all phones are to be set to silent and then sms will not bother other pax.

I am all for sms but would be anti phone call.

ejb

I would certainly agree. Definitely anti phone calls, but pro-SMS on the condition that it's a silent alert only. Nothing worse than a variety of bings, bleeps and "comedy" ring tones for the hard of thinking whilst you're trying to get some sleep.:evil:

 

[harvyk]

There is only one time that I would have loved the ability to make a phone call. Last year I was flying from CBR-PER via SYD. It was bad weather in SYD \ CBR so I ended up getting to CBR airport very early about 3 hours prior (about 6:30am) to my flight taking off and I suggested to my colleague that he did the same. He of course didn't.

When I rocked up at CBR they asked if I was ready to go NOW. I said yes I was, and they put me on the earlier flight which left 2 and a half hours earlier than my original flight. My colleague rocked up at a more normal time (about 8:00am) and he was placed on the original flight (about 9:30am).

I spent the next few hours in Syd waiting as my colleague was stuck circling SYD. My plane to PER started boarding and they closed the door just has his plane was landing. I then spent the next 4 hours wonder if he had gotten on to a plane. When I landed I of course couldn't get through because he was then in the air, but I didn't know exactly where.

It wasn't until about 4 hours later that I found out exactly where everyone was (and stressing out because I and half our equipment was in PER, he was apparently just leaving MEL, and the other half of our equipment was still in SYD). Had I been able to make a phone call mid flight it would have put my mind (almost) completely at ease.

 

[simongr]

I'd like to go to an even greater extreme, and see use of mobile phones banned from all forms of paid transportation, or at the least heavily discouraged.

I just get really hacked off at the large number of people who don't observe basic etiquette in public when using communication devices. A classic example on the train home this afternoon, with a 30-something women, more cough than class, yammering away at the top of her lungs about her personal life and what she would do to some person if they didn't do this or that.

Here ends this rant, normal programming to resume shortly

People do this on my train without their phones - frequently I get a gang of cackling women laughing and joking with each other that I can hear through my noise isolating headphones... The issue for me is not phones - it is people!

 

[Skoogle]

Perhaps all phones are to be set to silent and then sms will not bother other pax.

There is no way that silent mode could be enforced, and just like pax leave their phone turned on now, it is unlikely they will do it or care about it.

 

[JohnK]

It is bad enough listening to people on their mobile phones in the street, in clubs, on the bus, on trains. They are everywhere and I do not want to listen to what they have to say. Is it too much to ask for some and peace and quiet outside of my home?

Why do we need mobile phones in flight anyway? Is it because a couple of businessman want the ability to make calls in flight as they feel they are the most important people in the world and their company pays for the calls?

And how many times have you accidentally left your phone switched on for a flight - if it was really a problem, they would know that and not take off until all phones/devices were off.

An announcement was made on a QF flight a couple of weeks ago for the person with their mobile phone turned on to turn it off otherwise the aircraft was not going anywhere. How did they know or was it a guess?

 

[cmon0005]

An announcement was made on a QF flight a couple of weeks ago for the person with their mobile phone turned on to turn it off otherwise the aircraft was not going anywhere. How did they know or was it a guess?

I had my work mobile in my laptop bag and my personal mobile in my pocket.
Remembered to turn off the phone in my pocket, however forgot about the phone in my laptop bag..
Was on all the way from MEL-SYD without me even realising. :shock:

 

[ric.hayman]

An announcement was made on a QF flight a couple of weeks ago for the person with their mobile phone turned on to turn it off otherwise the aircraft was not going anywhere. How did they know or was it a guess?

Interesting - I've got no doubt that any such guess would probably be accurate on most, if not all flights! That's the first I've heard of a "serious" announcement like that (I had one on an AA flight in the States a few weeks back, but was clearly joking, as a way to remind people to turn off). Given the ubiquity of mobile phones, the occupancy rates for most flights I'm on, and peoples' attention span, the balance of probability is that there is at least one mobile left switched on on every flight. IF it was a problem, AND they could tell they were there (I suspect they CAN pick up low levels of interference) why aren't they jumping up and down all the time?

 

[harvyk]

An announcement was made on a QF flight a couple of weeks ago for the person with their mobile phone turned on to turn it off otherwise the aircraft was not going anywhere. How did they know or was it a guess?

I know there are gadgets out there which can detect switched on mobile phones. I've seen one working (going into a secured room which didn't allow mobile phone to be taken in), the device scanned the room for all switched on electronic devices and would screem at you until you turned everything off.