Friday, March 13, 2009

Cell phone use on planes...NOOOOOOO!

Today's Annoyance: Forced eavesdropping
Mantra of the Day:
BOSE QuietComfort headphones are in my future.

Say it isn’t so, Ryanair! Why must you insist on forcing me to hear the tedious conversations of dozens of other people while I travel?! There must be other ways for airlines to make money. I’d even pay for my food. Oh wait, they’re already charging us for that. How about charging to use the toilet? (Actually, Ryanair's CEO jokingly talked about doing this and several followup articles during the past week have reviewed the possibility of airlines charging for toilet use, so-called "pay-to-pee".)


I had heard a couple of years ago that several airlines were planning to launch in-air mobile phone service. To my chagrin, Ryanair has already equipped 20 of its planes with the service. Luckily, these planes are only being used on routes to and from Dublin. (For now.) I’m betting that the ob
session of the average person with phone calls and text messages will spell (more) doom for travelers who like a bit of piece and quiet on planes. Not even the cost will deter most of them from gleefully calling or texting their friends from 30,000 feet only to ask that age-old question: “Guess where I’m calling from?!”


Even the Tower of Babel had to be better than this. At least those people could simply run away. I’m thinking that air rage incidents will be on the rise in the very near future.

[IMAGE: Courtesy of Getty Images]



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