Well, I always heard that the problem was rapid handoffs between towers causing a lot of extra load on both the cell network and the phone itself. I can tell yo

Well, I always heard that the problem was rapid handoffs between towers causing a lot of extra load on both the cell network and the phone itself. I can tell you anecdotally that on a few of occasions I haven't put my phone in airplane mode during a flight, and it seems to drain the battery muck more quickly than normal.