Kindles can be turned off; they also have an airplane mode. Kindles can send and receive WIFI and sometimes 3G traffic. Kindles are electronic devices. Yeah, a

Kindles can be turned off; they also have an airplane mode. Kindles can send and receive WIFI and sometimes 3G traffic. Kindles are electronic devices. Yeah, and most Kindle owners don't know that. I therefore assume that every single flight is a piece of very strong evidence that kindles, ipads and all that lot, do not interfere with avionics, because each flight of 200 contains at least 50 active devices that have not been properly switched off for take-off or landing. Okay, that's something you should probably have mentioned earlier. Given my long history on this forum, perhaps you should not have assumed that I'm some kind of inveterate asshole just because I didn't explicitly mention that I'm not. They don't have the authority - that's the point. They merely enforce the (potentially dumb) rules given to them. The consequences to them and their employers for not enforcing the rules are severe. They might lose their job. Their company might be fined. I'm not angry at the flight attendants or even the companies for that - though the companies could probably do more to lobby for a change of the rule, on behalf of their passengers. In fact, the companies are probably not entirely blameless in this, but that would require more digging to establish. In general you don't want people to need to make assessments. Otherwise you get Ann saying it's fine for your kindle to be in sleep mode and Bob telling you you're going to be taken off the plane unless you turn it off. And if you do give these people that power you also need to give them the training, and the wage rise for the increased responsibility. That cost goes directly to you when you buy a ticket. On the contrary - if they don't need to make assessments, and their jobs are thereby dumbed down to just basically carrying drinks around and checking people's seatbelts, then they add pretty much zero to anyone's security, so your argument is nonsense. I'm happy to pay more for competence.