Fly me to the telephone booth

If we learned little else from 9-11, it’s that if you use a cell phone to make a phone call from a plane, nothing happens.

The point that it’s really okay to use a cell phone in flight was brought home in a piece by Justus Bender in yesterday’s Boston Globe. There’s apparently no science whatsoever behind the notion that some oaf calling the office to berate an underling can cause a plane crash. In fact, in other parts of the world, you can use your cellphone – including on Ryanair. (Betcha they’ve got a way to charge for it.)

So I guess it’s just a matter of time before it’s not just the cramped seats, seat-kicking toddlers, dirty toilets, and smelly sandwiches that people bring on board since they’re not being fed, that will be annoying us during the miracle of flight. Even now, if someone’s on a flight with Internet access, and they want to use Skype, what’s to stop them?

Personally, I do not look forward to the day when everyone whips out their smartphone the minute they’re buckled in and starts an endless of round of sotto voce (hah!) conversations. Bad enough you have to deal with these amadáns* - I was going to write ‘a-holes’ but there’s enough incivility in the world these days, written and aural – in the boarding area.  The last two times I’ve flown there were incredible loud mouths, completely oblivious to anyone around them, yacking away.  (My favorite is when they notice you listening and give you an indignant ‘this is private’ look.) Maybe at some point we’ll get beyond the need to yell into a mobile phone the same way your Great Uncle Henry felt he had to shout into the speaker if his voice was going to be heard clear across the county. And why is it that an overheard half- conversation is never, ever, ever interesting?

Anyway, once people can talk on planes, it’s going to be Hello, Central, and Goodbye, Shuteye.

I hope the airlines find a way to meter the calls, and charge as much as they did for those clunky satellite phones in the back of the seat that used to be on planes. (Are those in-flight AirPhones still around? I actually haven’t thought of them in years.)  Interesting, and perhaps because they cost a lot, those phones weren’t used all that often. 

Even in my business travel prime, I only used one a couple of times. (One was on a flight home from Minneapolis right after I’d learned that my Aunt Margaret had died. I really needed to weepily talk with someone….) The other times I did any mid-air dialing were to rearrange a meeting after a flight delay or something along those lines. Brief, purposeful.  I recall the charges being horrendous. Could it have been $12 a minute?

Anyway, I have absolutely no recall of ever being disturbed by someone on one of these phones. (Which is not to say it never happened.)

But with cell phones, it’s all paid for, part of the plan. Why wait to land to call everyone in your contact list and relay the same non-information? “Hey. It’s me. We just left Orlando, and I’ll be landing about 7:30.”  Or to have a spirited and highly personal discussion about your dating life.  (Case in point: the obnoxious young guy in the boarding area for a NY shuttle at Logan a few months ago.  What an amadán! Since the hotel we stayed at denies it was them – and even sent me a certification that they were bug free – that guy might also have been a bed-bug carrier.  Thanks, pal.)

According to Bender, our friendly skies may stay quiet. For a while, at least.

…even if the FCC were to revoke the ban, the FAA’s current regulations for the certification of electronic equipment would apply. This would mean air carriers would have to show that every particular cellphone model is compatible with every particular airplane type. With hundreds of cellphone models released every year, this would mean a continuing source of cost for airlines, while the only benefit would be the convenience of passengers.

Make that the convenience of some passengers, to the extreme detriment and inconvenience of others.

All I can say is, thank god for the young folks who don’t make phone calls anymore. I’d a lot rather listen to someone thumb away with their texting, rather than be subjected to their invariably loud and generally boring  chatter.

I am so not looking forward to the airplane becoming a virtual, non-private phone booth. Maybe they’ll have a quiet section, like the quiet car on Amtrak.  Or like the smoking section of yore. Of course, you could always get stuck in the row in front of or in back of smoking. Gag! (Once I was on a flight and a women lit up next to me. I politely pointed out that she was seated in non-smoking. She replied that there were no seats available in smoking. Oy.)

I’m sure any general requests that people not yell into their phones will be for naught. (Sort of like those “as a courtesy to the next passenger, please wipe down the sink” signs in the toilets.) After all, I’m important, my call’s important, I’m me, and the roar of those jet engines is mighty loud.

With apologies to Frank Sinatra**

Fly me to the virtual telephone booth,
And let me yack up in the skies
Let my seat-mate here my voice,
My aimless chat, my lies.
In other words, I must call.
In other words: me, me, me.

Lame, I know. But I couldn’t get anything to rhyme with cloud or fuselage.

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*Irish for eejit fool.

**Yes, I know that Old Blue Eyes didn’t write Fly Me To The Moon, but he’s sure the reason most of us know it.