Do Our Gadgets Really Threaten Planes?
The ban on electronic devices rests on anecdotes, not on hard evidence—because there isn't any — WAS ALEC BALDWIN RIGHT? When the actor tussled with American Airlines personnel last December over his desire to continue playing a game …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Wall Street Journal's argument lands on a policy whose evidentiary floor has been crumbling in public for a year. Tests reported in December 2011 cast doubt on the F.C.C.'s restrictions on Kindles and iPads, a March 2012 column called outright for an F.A.A. policy review, and by June wearable gadgets were already straining the rules' definitions. The piece reframes the ban not as settled safety practice but as anecdote-driven rulemaking — with Alec Baldwin's December 2011 ejection from an American Airlines flight over a word game as its cultural shorthand.
The airline at the center of the Baldwin incident is also the awkward case study: American won F.A.A. approval to put iPads in its own cockpits back in December 2011, sells Passbook boarding passes at the iOS 6 launch, and has been rolling out cabin Wi-Fi since announcing the program in 2009. A carrier monetizing connected devices in the cabin while passengers must power theirs down is the contradiction the article is built on.
First-order effects
- American Airlines and other Wi-Fi-equipped carriers face a widening gap between what they sell passengers (in-flight connectivity) and what the F.A.A. lets those same passengers do with their devices during takeoff and landing.
- The Baldwin episode gives consumer advocates and commentators a concrete grievance to press against the F.A.A., keeping device-rule reform on the agency's agenda alongside the earlier calls for review.
Second-order effects
- Device makers and app developers gain an argument for lobbying the F.A.A. directly, since every phase of flight spent powered-off shrinks the usable window for the tablets, e-readers, and wearables they sell.
- Airlines that have invested in cabin Wi-Fi face pressure to join the push for relaxed rules, because the restriction caps the value of the connectivity they already charge for.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — testing that finds no interference, airlines deploying the same devices themselves, enforcement resting on anecdotes — the takeoff-and-landing electronics ban becomes harder to defend as anything other than regulatory inertia, pushing the F.A.A. toward evidence-based device rules or a formal reclassification of low-power personal electronics.
The trend: Aviation regulation of personal electronics is drifting from blanket prohibition toward evidence-based rules, driven by testing results, airline adoption of the same devices, and high-profile enforcement flashpoints.