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1) It's not. They ask people to switch off all transmitters during flights (and later to during takeoff and landing) because of RF emissions. 2) Because you can
by Sporktacular 4y ago
1) It's not. They ask people to switch off all transmitters during flights (and later to during takeoff and landing) because of RF emissions.
2) Because you can't turn trackers off, especially when they're in the hold.
Read the initial article that started all this, it even says that reason is because of transmissions.
- spoonalious 4y agoExcept they don’t because most have onboard wifi now. And most allow Bluetooth headphones, including Lufthansa: Lufthansa: Bluetooth headphones are allowed during every part of the flight.
- gbin 4y agoSo clearly this is again an airline using a rule as a "proxy" for something else they want. Like no chewing tobacco... Yeah it is gross but it is probably not a safety issue.
- mutt2016 4y agoFlying is among the most dreadful activities I do. The whole thing is unsettling from the moment I pull up to the airport. This is one of many absolutely ridiculous things the airline industry has enforced. But.. I must fly places, so I just suffer like the rest.
- bombcar 4y agoNote that voip calls are prohibited even though you can get internet access. This is because of annoying other customers, not because of safety.
- yellow_postit 4y agoWouldn’t it also be bandwidth consumption on a limited connection?
- fphhotchips 4y agoPerhaps on the upload but download bandwidth can seemingly deal with a plane full of people streaming Netflix these days, so that's not an issue.
- anu7df 4y agoNetflix on a plane? I have never seen that. Which onboard wifi allows that? Perhaps you are thinking of movies delivered via wifi, but the content is streamed from the plane itself.
- bpye 4y agoI’ve been able to stream video on an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to London, afaik it’s the same GoGo satellite service that seemingly everyone else has.
- fphhotchips 4y agoQantas has been able to do Netflix/Youtube/whatever on a plane with free wifi for several years. I'm not talking about onboard entertainment, which is a separate thing with a separate app (which is, on the domestic flights where free wifi is offered, largely obsolete at this point). It's not without momentary buffering issues, and I will tend to download things in advance for that reason, but 99% of the time it's pretty good.
- bombcar 4y agoYeah they explicitly allowed movie streaming from basically any site but not voip. There’s no way they had all the YouTube cached on the olane
- nonethewiser 4y ago
- Sporktacular 4y ago1) The wifi system is EMC certified and tested with the flight instrumentation. Dozens of different consumer devices are not. 2) Lufthansa "allows it during the entire flight without restriction – even during take-off and landing unless the crew instruct otherwise"(https://bluetoothtechworld.com/can-i-use-bluetooth-headphones-on-a-plane/ https://bluetoothtechworld.com/can-i-use-bluetooth-headphone...). In other words, unless you're told to turn it off in the event of some problem, which is something you can't do when it's in the luggage hold of the aircraft. Again, the articles specifies this is about EMC.
- 8note 4y agoIs that certification actually important? It seems to me like a denylist would be more useful than an Allowlist at this point. Almost no consumer electronics are dangerous to a plane
- Sporktacular 4y agoApparently, to them, yes.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoTheir wifi system might be, but a 100 phones and tablets, some from reputable manufacturers, some from "10TB tablet apple samsung iphone" sellers from aliexpress, and the system still works. Imagine planes falling down because a single passenger had a malfunctioning phone on it... the lawsuits against boeing/airbus would be astronomical.
- Sporktacular 4y agoNot sure what about my comment you take to be an endorsement of opaque, seemingly unreasonable EMC rules. I don't make them, know if they work or particularly care for the purpose of this thread. The concerns stated, justified or otherwise, were about RF emissions and not battery fires.
- zahllos 4y ago
- AlfeG 4y agoAll airline I've been travel, disable WiFi during takeoff and landing.
- reaperducer 4y agoIt's not. They ask people to switch off all transmitters during flights (and later to during takeoff and landing) because of RF emissions. I think that's a little outdated. I flew a few times a few months ago, and the passengers were repeatedly encouraged to hook up to the plane's wifi as soon as we boarded. No announcements were made about turning devices off. Not even during take-off or landing. I'm one of those people who pays attention to the announcements and reads the safety cards every time, so I was surprised. I think the airlines think it's safer to have excitable people turned into gadget zombies during the flight to make the time pass faster and keep them from getting rowdy. The same function that the in-flight movie, drink, and meal used to serve before those were all value engineered away.
- mbreese 4y ago> passengers were repeatedly encouraged to hook up to the plane's wifi as soon as we boarded I think this is to make sure that you have it setup early so any tech support can be handled early and to make sure you can download the airline app to your phone if needed. The aircrew can enable/disable the wifi at will. Next time look to see if it is working at takeoff. I’m honestly not sure if it will be or not, but it used to be a switch in the cabin.
- reaperducer 4y agoNext time look to see if it is working at takeoff. Considering the number of people glued to their screens during takeoff, if it suddenly stopped working, I think the cabin-wide moaning and groaning would have been obvious.
- Nextgrid 4y ago> The aircrew can enable/disable the wifi at will. Yes, but that does nothing when it comes to risk of radio emissions. Turning off the AP doesn't magically prevent client devices from doing whatever they want anyway. If there was a genuine risk of a client device interfering with the plane's equipment, turning off an AP wouldn't do anything about it, nor will asking the passengers to turn it off (some might not comply, forget or not even realize that their device has a Wi-Fi radio in it). You need either extreme control over every electronic device brought onboard (including X-ray scans, since implantable medical devices now have RF communication too), or enough shielding around the sensitive equipment to make RF no longer a risk - the latter has already been done for decades and RF is no longer (and I don't recall ever being actually) a threat to airplanes.
- zwily 4y agoThey don’t ask you to turn off all radios during takeoff/landing anymore. Just cellular.
- OJFord 4y agoAnd some large percentage doesn't bother and it's absolutely fine.
- Sporktacular 4y agoObviously. But it's not the point. Point was the concern - by their thinking - is not the battery in the AirTag but the transmitter. I give up.