Using A Cell Phone While In Flight

My greatest nightmare is close to becoming a reality.  Yep!  It involves those annoying cell phones I constantly rant about. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates the airline industry, says it may eliminate the ban on in-flight cell phone usage Those chattering, addicted, morons will be allowed to "cell" to their hearts content.  Just think, you'll be stuck in a confined space with people yammering on the phones the entire flight. I wonder if there is a bus that travels across the oceans?

It's sad because there aren't many places left where we can escape the cell phone crowd.  Amid the many discomforts of flying, it has always been a kind of the forced quiet on an airplane ride that has made the long flights bearable. The loss of that quiet is a seriously unhappy prospect. Many people like me savor the library like quiet to make a plane flight something less than torture. That sacred ground is about to disappear.

An airplane is one of the few places you can get away from all the cell phone nonsense.  It's meant to be a quiet place, and most airlines try to maintain that. No more. I envision arguments, fights, violence between the more obnoxious, rude and loud cell chatters and some of the thin skinned passengers who can't take a 4 hour in flight entertainment of the loud guy or gals cell conversation. I think it not possible to provide a "cell area" in the plane, given the confined spaces of an airplane. But if the airlines can charge cell addicts more to sit in a "cell class" portion of the plane they will surely do it.

Want to read on your flight or nap a bit? Forget that when your seat mate is loudly discussing his or her constipation problems or cursing at the naughty son left on the ground. And the awful and inconsiderate cell phone etiquette we endure on the ground will be just as bad aloft. Will they talk softly to respect other passengers? No way! Cell users tend to speak louder on cell phones than they do when speaking directly to a person. Will they avoid intimate subjects or keep their conversations brief?  I'll take bets on that one. Several airlines have said they won't allow it, but if they can make profit by allowing it that prohibition will quickly change.

Our devices, and our habits with our devices, are getting in the way of our need for quiet. We need quiet. and there is far less quiet than ever before. Fact is, quiet keeps us sane in a loud world.  Whomever came up with the idea to unleash cell conversations on airplanes should be arrested and confined to an airplane for life....with a passenger load full of cell phone addicts