After years of wrangling over long-term FAA reauthorization legislation, Congress earlier this month passed a $63 billion bill to fund the agency through fiscal 2015.
The conference agreement, which ended a string of 23 short-term funding measures and is now headed for President Barack Obama’s desk, is broad in scope; it covers everything from NextGen air traffic control modernisation and ADS-B equipage on aircraft to airport improvement funding.
But stakeholders in the passenger experience industry should take note – Congress passed the FAA reauthorization bill without including a controversial provision that would have imposed a permanent federal ban on the inflight use of mobile phones and VoIP.
Instead, the bill requires the FAA to study the impact of cell phones for voice communications on aircraft where such service is currently permitted by foreign governments.
The study will include: a review of foreign government and air carrier policies on the use of cell phones during flight; a review of the extent to which passengers use cell phones for voice communications during flight; and a summary of any impacts of cell phone use during flight on safety, the quality of the flight experience of passengers, and flight attendants.
The FAA is to initiate a 60-day public comment period and this will help gather relevant comments from all corners of the market/consumer space – travellers, cabin crews, businesses, airlines, telecom stakeholders and advocacy groups.
“The input will range from anecdotal to factual to emotional,” notes Carl Biersack, executive director of the Inflight Passenger Communications Coalition (IPCC), a lobbying group comprising industry stakeholders. This in turn will help the FAA as it prepares its report for the House of Representatives’ committee on transportation and infrastructure and the Senate’s committee on commerce, science and transportation, which is due 270 days after the bill is enacted.
It remains to be seen if the FAA and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will ultimately overturn their current bans on the inflight use of mobile phones, or whether US travellers will support such a move (some people reason it isn’t necessary since inflight Wi-Fi is now widely available).
Nonetheless, Congress’ decision not to impose a permanent federal band, and instead mandate a study (the House called for the study; the Senate remained silent on the issue) may indicate that lawmakers are less hostile to the notion of inflight voice calls than in years past.
In 2008, Congressman Peter DeFazio and other members of the House of Representatives introduced the “Halting Airplane Noise and Give Us Peace” or HANG-UP Act in standalone form. They later tried to tie the bill to FAA reauthorization legislation via an amendment.
Fighting their efforts every step of the way was the IPCC, whose members include mobile connectivity providers AeroMobile and OnAir.
Responding to the news that FAA reauthorization legislation has passed Congress, Biersack tells the APEX editor’s blog: “I cannot thank the leadership of those two committees enough for working so hard to get the bill done – it was a herculean effort. Along that path they found valid compromises for many issues to include cell phone connectivity. All of the committee members (and their staffs) worked hard to get this done – it has invested nearly a half decade of drafting/editing/writing/refining so you can bet provisions and policies were hard fought, and this I believe makes for a good legislative product (that has been my experience as a Senate staffer for a decade – it is the hard ones that are done well).
“Originally the House had a ban and the Senate was silent (and that was its own position – no ban can be inferred). And several years later – now – Congress says – do a study and it empowered the FAA regulator with the authority to do its job. That is a fair compromise.”
Do you think voice calls should be permitted in flight? Have your say in the comment section of this blog.
February 13, 2012 at 3:56 am
Don’t confuse edict with legislation.
While a cramped cabin is not polite place to make a call, neither is snoring ( loud enough to be heard over the engines ) and any number of things that a person should avoid doing in public.
By legislating “good behavior” you limit the ability for an important life saving device to be used in-flight.
February 14, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Would be great to remain connected during flight. I don’t need a long conversation, but it would give peace of mind to family members. For business, it would allow me to remain engaged with my staff when time sensitive issues are moving at a fast pace. Commuters on buses and subway systems have proven to be mostly polite with short and quiet cell phone calls. I believe the vast majority of the flying public will applaud the new connectivity while also respecting their fellow passengers.
February 18, 2012 at 10:20 am
I think, topics like these are very important to be discussed, in which people’s lives are at risk. Thanks for sharing this.
February 21, 2012 at 8:19 am
I doubt that this study will reveal any measurable (electronic) Safety of Flight issues. I hope they pay serious attention to the quality of experience issue, but doubt it. Airplanes with 95+ load factors are already a noisy bit of hell for many and adding 50% of them hollerining to the cell phones is NOT going to improve their experience. Further more, the flight crew/Cabin crew will not have any means to break the connections when importatant safety (or emergency) announcements need to be made. As Congressman DeFazio titled his bill on the subject, HANG-UP! This is not a whole lot different from the SHUT UP AND DRIVE issues on our roads. After years of complaints and growing accident satistics, many states are stepping up to ban talking while driving. On airplanes, let’s prevent the problem before it gets a toe-hold.