Angry Birds on a plane

Australia’s air safety regulator and its major airlines are so far taking a non-committal view of the “interesting” developments in that consumer paradise across the Pacific, but it’s seen as highly likely that Aussie flyers will be enjoying their own e-books and Angry Birds during all phases of flight sometime not too far into the new year.

The end of the long-standing ban on gadgets during takeoff and landing may be good news for many, but it does raise several questions all-but lost amid the mostly celebratory coverage of the change. What took so long, and why now? Was there a good reason for the ban in the first place?If so, should we now be worried? And finally, will the NSA be monitoring all onboard electronic activity, or just that of non-Americans? (Okay, the last one is a joke. Maybe. )

Why now?

The straightforward answer is that the FAA’s PED Aviation Rulemaking Committee (PED stands for Personal Electronic Device, if you’re keeping score) recently concluded that most commercial aircraft can “tolerate radio interference signals from PEDs”, according to an FAA statement. Based on this finding, the FAA dropped its ban from November 1 and allowed airlines to apply for permission to let passengers use their PEDs during takeoff and landing.

The application process requires airlines to evaluate aircraft avionics to ensure that particular aircraft types are PED-resistant – some aren’t. They also must revise manuals, checklists for crew member training materials, carry-on baggage programs and passenger briefings before going forward.

While that sounds like a lot of work, a streamlined approval process has already seen most major US carriers receive the go-ahead, including Delta, American Airlines, United, US Airways and JetBlue. Most smaller regional carriers have yet to go through the approval process, however, and since the legacy carriers operate much of their regional networks through subcontractors, in practice the implementation of the new regime will be a patchwork for the time being, depending both on aircraft type and operator.

Not all restriction have been dropped. Devices must still be used in ‘airplane mode’, which blocks the transmission of cellular signals. These are seen as more dangerous since they are designed to transmit over long distances, and in any case the FAA said it did not review the use of mobile phones since they are regulated by another government agency. In addition to voice calls still being prohibited, larger electronic devices like laptops still have to be stowed during takeoff and landing. In rare instances, such as low-visibility landings, passengers may be asked to turn off their PEDs.

The changes have been widely hailed for, as the FAA itself put it, bringing its policies “up to speed with the 21st century”. According to a study released earlier this year by DePaul University in Chicago, the ban on electronic usage at the beginning and end of flights added up to “more than 105 million hours of disrupted technological activity” on domestic US flights, a figure doubled since 2010. Though one suspects that ‘technological activity’ is a slightly grandiose term for what most people do with their PEDs on a plane, having to turn off an ebook reader with hardly more technological functionality than the magazine in the seatback pocket did seem rather arbitrary. No doubt fans of Candy Crush Saga felt similar chagrin.

A variety of stakeholders, including the main US flight attendants union, have signalled their approval of the relaxed rules, but perhaps no-one is happier than the electronics industry. In fact, the close links between that industry and the FAA have raised some eyebrows about the process that led to the ban being dropped, with The Washington Post and others questioning the choice of Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy, as the chair of the FAA technical committee on PEDs that recommended the changes. As the Post noted, it seemed surprising that “a company with the most commercial interest in the outcome of the panel’s report would directly oversee the scientific content of that report, as opposed to, say, some independent technical expert. ” Surprising indeed – unless

One suspects that ‘technological activity’ is a slightly grandiose term for what most people do with their PEDs on a plane.

you’ve been paying attention to the way government regulation generally works in the United States.

Even so, the committee did not achieve unanimity. Five of its 27 members dissented, including members of the Association of Flight Attendants and the Air Line Pilots Association. The latter organisation said relying on passengers to turn off their devices in very poor weather was “not a practical solution”.

So should we be worried?

For the average passenger, the common-sense answer would seem to be negative. If an iPhone doesn’t make a plane fall out of the sky at 10,000ft and above, why should it be a problem below? In addition, most people who fly regularly have probably had the experience of reaching the gate, pulling out their phone, and realising they forgot to put it in airplane mode – and yet they arrived safely. And indeed pilot use of iPads as electronic flight bags is now widespread across many airlines.

Of course, the difference between a high and low-altitude malfunction is clear. If a cockpit instrument goes on the fritz at cruising altitude it’s unlikely to cause a serious problem, but a malfunction during the critical takeoff and landing phases when most accidents occur presents a far greater danger. Still, while it has long been suspected that the signals from electronic devices could pose a danger of interfering with aircraft systems, establishing a clear link (or, for that matter, ruling one out) is by nature extremely difficult, since PEDs are obviously not part of the aircraft’s native ecosystem. Even those aviation experts who view PED usage with alarm can only point to evidence full of words like ‘suspected’, ‘possibly’, ‘allegedly’.

NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System details a number of such incidents, ranging from a Boeing 767 that suffered extensive flight systems failures to a 737 unable to receive navigation updates and an Airbus A320 reporting VHF interference – all as a suspected result of electronic devices. A leaked 2011 report by the International Air Transport Association tallied 75 incident worldwide between 2003 and 2009 where electronic devices were believed to have caused interference with flight systems.

Put in perspective, 75 global incidents over a seven-year period verges on statistical insignificance. On the other hand, had one of those incidents resulted in catastrophe, that number would be seen in a much different light.

For all that, extensive testing on the effects PEDs may have on aircraft systems has been conducted for years. FAA guidance released in 2011 outlined methods to design and verify aircraft tolerance to electro-magnetic interference from personal devices. According to that guidance, new-build aircraft are unlikely to pose a problem since they’ve been designed alongside widespread use of PEDs, but systems designed before such devices existed may be vulnerable. Often, such vulnerabilities have been discovered as aircraft have been retrofitted with Wi-Fi internet and entertainment systems. Honeywell Phase 3 Display Units, for example, were found to be susceptible to blanking out as a result of interference during Wi-Fi certification of Boeing’s 737NG.

While the FAA’s 2011 guidance suggested full-flight PED usage could be safely allowed on most aircraft, it stopped short of recommending the takeoff and landing restrictions be dropped, mostly over operational concerns. Central among those is that dropping the restriction will add to the burden on already busy flight attendants. As high-profile incidents involving actor Alec Baldwin and US Senator Charles Schumer have highlighted, people don’t like being told to turn off their phones, and they may like it even less now that the rules allow them – most of the time, on most flights – to keep them on. As one aviation expert writing in the US put it, flight attendants are “now expected to police a complex set of rules for different devices on different aircraft types on different airlines during different phases of flight. ” On the other hand, busy flight attendants may welcome a change that means, on most flights, they have one less thing to worry about.

Coming soon to an airline near you?

Given the propensity of the world’s air safety regulators to follow one another’s lead, it seems likely that Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) will review its own regulations with regard to personal electronics. As it stands, CASA has no specific current regulations governing such gadgets, which are instead covered under a catch-all requirement that airlines ensure passenger safety and compliance with safety instructions. Traditionally, domestic airlines here have followed international standards, but in theory they could probably drop restrictions on PED use without waiting for CASA to act.

However, Virgin Australia said it would welcome a CASA review that could clear the way for similar changes as in the US, indicating that it hopes the regulator will take the lead. Qantas called the US changes “interesting” and said it would take a close look at the FAA’s decision.

Safety concerns obviously shouldn’t be dismissed, but the general reception of the changes in the US shows that such worries have done little to dint enthusiasm for inflight gadgeteering. Indeed, as little time as many people now voluntarily spend outside the orbit of their phones, it is perhaps surprising that such restrictions have lasted as long as they have.