> Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers. It's not any air safety issue. It was when it was introduced. In today's modern a

> Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers. It's not any air safety issue. It was when it was introduced. In today's modern airliner there is not much risk but earlier equipment was not built to withstand this kind of interference. Sometimes you could even hear GSM buzzing through the audio of the pilots speaking, on the airband. It was also a certification issue. Today it's not a technical issue anymore in the western world, and some airlines even permit the phones to be used while in cruise (they provide their own 3G/4G access point on board with satellite backhaul - at a huge markup of course!). Though WiFi is more popular. Airlines that don't still prohibit it for what I believe are more social reasons (and the issue with them swarming cell towers indeed) It's a bit similar to the issue happening now with radio altimeters and 5G. Many airliners still have older radio altimeters that aren't built to deal with 5G interference (in this case from the ground though). The amount of RF energy coming from a BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon is absolutely minimal though, it's for this reason that they can run for months on a button cell. A cell phone can transmit 1-2 Watts of energy.