Two plane crashes in the early 2000s were blamed on signal interference from electronic devices. From that moment on, regulators began developing policies requiring passengers to put their devices in airplane mode or turn them off entirely. They claimed the devices interfered with aviation navigation and flight control systems. But did they, really?
The European Aviation Safety Agency determined in 2014 that electronic devices posed no safety threat on airplanes. Regardless, a number of aviation regulators around the world continue to require airlines to enforce their airplane mode policies. To this day, flight attendants still remind passengers to put their electronics in airplane mode.
There is one exception: your willingness to pay for in-flight wi-fi. If you want to fork over the cash, you can use your laptop or smartphone to access the internet. But wait. Doesn’t that interfere with flight controls and navigation? It obviously does not. So what’s the deal?
Annoying But Safe
The real reason airlines kept insisting on airplane mode after the 2014 announcement is likely the fact that electronic devices, while safe, were still annoying. Annoying to whom? Pilots in the cockpit.
Electronic devices, particularly phones, are designed to emit more power when a cell tower is far away. Putting out the maximum amount of power can cause all sorts of annoyances in an airplane cockpit. For example, it can cause buzzing and beeping sounds in a pilot’s headphones.
The airlines discovered that such annoyances were not issue as long as electronic devices remained on low power. That discovery led to a brilliant idea: installing wi-fi in the cabin would give customers access to the internet without requiring their devices to emit maximum power. Pilots would no longer be annoyed, and airlines would have another revenue generator.
How Planes Get Internet Access
Now that you know the dirty little secret about electronic devices in airplane mode, you might be wondering how you can get internet access on a plane. Airlines tend to use one of two technologies: 4G cellular internet or satellite internet.
A plane equipped with 4G internet has an antenna mounted somewhere on the bottom of the aircraft. That antenna communicates with cell towers the same way your phone does. It is a directional antenna, so it doesn’t interfere with what’s going on in the cockpit.
Blazing Hog, a Houston company that offers 4G internet nationwide, says that internet speeds under such an arrangement are typically pretty good. But signals can be interrupted by everything from weather to ground cover. And should a plane fly over an area with a limited number of cell towers, internet access can be spotty.
Other planes are equipped with satellite internet. Rather than trying to communicate with cell towers built on terra firma, their systems communicate with satellites floating around in space. For this reason, you could make the case that the satellite option is better on a plane.
Keep Them in Airplane Mode
Not having electronic devices in airplane mode is not a safety issue. Still, be nice to the pilots when you fly. If you are not willing to pay for wi-fi access that keeps your device in low power mode, then adhere to the policy and go with airplane mode. The last thing you want to do is annoy pilots.
Maybe our phones will someday be usable on planes without being annoying. Until then, perhaps we should just keep them off and go back to reading books during long flights. Heck, maybe we should try having a conversation or two with our seatmates. Would that be so bad?
