Many Air Passengers Never Turn Off Electronics, Survey Finds
Take a guess at how many people actually fail to turn off their gadgets during takeoff and landing of a flight. Ten percent? No, that's too low. Twenty percent? Still too low. — In a study released on Thursday …
Context & Ripple Effects
This survey lands mid-argument. In March 2013, NYT Bits reported that the F.A.A. was weighing loosening its curbs on fliers' use of electronics, and a 2012 Bits column had already called for a formal review of the gadget policy. The open technical question — whether cabin devices genuinely interfere with avionics — has been contested since at least the Wall Street Journal's 2012 examination of the evidence.
What the survey adds is behavioral data: whatever the rule says, a large share of passengers are not powering down at takeoff and landing. That reframes the debate from 'should we allow devices?' to 'the ban is already unenforced,' and echoes earlier friction points like the 2007 detention of an ATA Airlines passenger for using an iPhone in airplane mode and the enforcement headaches posed by wearable gadgets that don't fit the off-switch model.
First-order effects
- Flight crews are left enforcing a rule that survey data suggests a large share of passengers ignore, making compliance-by-edict look unworkable and handing the F.A.A. evidence that the current policy doesn't match real behavior.
Second-order effects
- With the F.A.A. already reviewing its electronics restrictions, airlines and device makers gain a stronger factual basis to push for gate-to-gate use, while aircraft manufacturers face pressure to demonstrate which avionics are actually tolerant of cabin electronics rather than relying on the precautionary default.
Third-order effects
- If regulators respond by certifying aircraft for device use instead of banning devices outright, the burden of proof shifts from passengers to manufacturers — a structural move from prohibition toward tested-tolerance standards that would also have to absorb always-on wearables with no practical off state.
The trend: Aviation electronics policy is drifting from blanket takeoff-and-landing bans toward evidence-based device certification, driven as much by mass non-compliance as by engineering findings.