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By your own logic, we don't need the FAA. Consumers will simply vote with their dollars to fly on safe airlines so why regulate safety measures, right?

Safety is a life or death matter and should be regulated. That easily falls within the realm of the Constitution and the purpose of government. Cell phone etiquette does not.
 
They regulate far more than safety, but many aspects of operations. For instance you would think that the "free market" (cough) would make airlines with very poor on-time departures, who leave their customers on the tarmac for 2-3 hours as the plane runs out of food/water/bathroom-capacitysink to the bottom and the customers would go to another airline (oh wait, not simple to do). There are now regulations forcing the industry to try and not do this to its customers. They've had decades to fix this on their own, but didn't.

Once the government deregulated fees the insanity of charging nickel-and-dime fees grew up. As a frequent business traveller as the bag fees goes up, I watch the size of the carryons get bigger as nobody wants to deal with the fees; but wait, the free market should take care of this, but it doesn't (it is getting worse)...

Without regulation the flight attendant couldn't enforce stoping obnoxious behavior. If someone is drunk/disorderly on the plane (it's not safety per se since the cockpit is locked) the attendants now have legal recourse to stop them (which before was a "please stop being belligerent" situation). Regulation isn't a bad thing per se, but bad regulation is. Without a rule that says either that they are banned across the board OR that the airline has the right to enforce their own ban with the force of law, people will tell the attendant to go screw: "I have the legal right to make calls wherever".

I agree with you about regulations prohibiting belligerent/drunken behavior on airplane. Those clearly fall within the realm of safety.

The 3 hour rule, which is actually a DOT regulation not FAA, has caused a lot of adverse effects for consumers as well. Pre-emptive cancellations have gone through the roof at a lot of airlines, whether or not they're warranted. Mandatory gate returns have occurred when a plane was 15 minutes from departure due to this rule, causing the airplane to go back to the end of the 2+ hour line again after a lengthy delay. The penalties imposed on airlines for violating this "pro-consumer" rule are huge, and its impact on operations are more often not in passengers' best interests.

Passengers are already required to comply with flight crew instructions per the FAA.
 
Because unless you charter your own private aircraft, it is everybody's business as to whether you should be permitted to make calls in-flight.

No, this is wrong because "everybody" doesn't own the airline. If it were a government-owned airline I would agree with you.

Unless it poses a safety risk, it's the owner of the aircraft's business whether you should be permitted to make calls in-flight. If enough people want call-free flights, it will be in airlines' best interests financially to make that option available, and they will.

Same outcome basically, but your method is oppression and mine is freedom. The mechanism by which we achieve things like this really does matter.
 
Because unless you charter your own private aircraft, it is everybody's business as to whether you should be permitted to make calls in-flight.

No more so than it's "everybody's business as to whether you should be permitted to make calls" on the sidewalk, or in a store, or any other place accessible to the public.

People on a plane who are talking are *talking*, it matters not one whit whether they're talking to someone in the seat next to them, across the aisle, or on the other end of a phone call. If you think you have any business deciding whether or not the people around you are allowed to talk, you should probably stick to your own private property where you *do* have that right.
 
No more so than it's "everybody's business as to whether you should be permitted to make calls" on the sidewalk, or in a store, or any other place accessible to the public.

People on a plane who are talking are *talking*, it matters not one whit whether they're talking to someone in the seat next to them, across the aisle, or on the other end of a phone call. If you think you have any business deciding whether or not the people around you are allowed to talk, you should probably stick to your own private property where you *do* have that right.

It really is a difference if the person sitting next to you is talking to the person next to him or into a mobilephone. If he is talking to the person sitting next to him, he will face away from you. If he is talking into a phone he will face forward (or even towards you). When in a confined space like an airplane every little thing matters.
 
If the DOT wants to decide what is "fair" to consumers, I hope they will also look into if it is "fair" to allow someone to sit in a seat they cannot possibly fit into and intrude into the seat next to them.

I like how you assume that, because you're cramped on a plane, it must be that everyone else is a lard-ass. :rolleyes:

Look into what's been happening to seat width* on passenger flights over the past decade or so. The most recent reduction in seat width (which enables the airlines to fit another seat in each row (2 on a wide-bodied aircraft) puts the seats at about the same width as the average adult male's shoulder width of ~17". (A few 'bargain' airlines have seats as narrow as 15".) Given that the armrests are 2" wide, and the average adult posterior (male *or* female) is 15", there's not much room for *anybody* in an airliner these days.

I'm not overweight, but at 6'2", and with 18" shoulders, it doesn't matter where I sit on a plane. I find myself being forced to lean toward (or even into) the aisle just to avoid crushing my seat mate against the cabin wall. I've had to twist sideways in my seat to allow the drink cart to go past on more than one occasion.

The folks who can afford to fly business class, or first class have it a bit better, with seats that are about 19" and 21" wide, respectively. That means the folks in business class have enough room to *not* keep their arms pressed to their sides for the entire trip, and the folks in first class can actually relax without shoving their neighbor. The rest of us cattle down in coach aren't so lucky.

*The seat width is measured from center of arm rest to center of arm rest.

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You. Sound. Exactly. Like. The. Guy. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Listen. To. Talking. On . Your. Mobile. In. Flight.

Strange, you sound exactly like the guy I don't want to listen to bitching for the entire flight about someone else talking. Do you think that just because you're not on a phone, that the noise you make when you talk is somehow 'special'?

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I don't think you understand how they work. Noise cancelling headphones cancel out ambient noise that does not change, particularly noise with a lot of bass. So it does a great job of cancelling out engine noise (on a plane or in a car), as well as HVAC and general computer and background noise in an office.

The effect of this (and kind of the goal) is that it makes the spoken voice much more clear. If I wear my NC headphones in my office, the HVAC and computer noises vanish. And I can hear people talking in distant parts of the office that I have never heard before.

TL;DR - noise cancelling headphones will make cellphone conversations around you much more clear.

You're apparently unaware that the noise cancelling headphones he's talking about cancel *outside* noise, so you can hear what's *playing* through them more clearly. They've been available for quite a few years now. Maybe you should try them.

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I don't think people are overreacting to this because frequent fliers understand that it only takes a handful of uncouth loudmouth passengers to ruin the flight for everyone. Again, there is no dire need for anyone to have a...conversation on a plane. It's 1-4 hours if domestic surely they can hold off for that long just as they do for smoking. And International. Oh geez. Tower of Babel.

That's it! Gags for everyone! No talking!
 
They regulate far more than safety, but many aspects of operations. For instance you would think that the "free market" (cough) would make airlines with very poor on-time departures, who leave their customers on the tarmac for 2-3 hours as the plane runs out of food/water/bathroom-capacitysink to the bottom and the customers would go to another airline (oh wait, not simple to do). There are now regulations forcing the industry to try and not do this to its customers. They've had decades to fix this on their own, but didn't.

Once the government deregulated fees the insanity of charging nickel-and-dime fees grew up. As a frequent business traveller as the bag fees goes up, I watch the size of the carryons get bigger as nobody wants to deal with the fees; but wait, the free market should take care of this, but it doesn't (it is getting worse)...

Best, and cheaper, solution to this is fly your own self in rental plane.

I flew myself and 2 passengers from Texas to South Carolina.
It costs me less than airfare for 3 people, AND took about the same time, maybe less (airline would have to change flight and then drive 1.5 hours to hit destination).

Airlines are trying to stop air-taxi operations by imposing a kind of "airway ticket", charge you for air passage, not just the seat.
 
Think how unaware and unintelligent the average person is. Realize that half a population is even more so.

If it weren't for a government, policing and rule of law, you'd all be cannibalizing each other in no time.

SHUDAFUHUP on an airplane (and everywhere else in public) No one wants to hear your idiotic trivial BS, ok:mad:
 
Sounds like you don't really have anything more than a comic book understanding of conservative or Libertarian principles. For one, you lump them together when they are quite different, even if some ideas are shared. And "conservative" principles also diverge between social and economic/business issues and then branch off again at foreign policy (paleo-cons vs neo-cons).

But here is the short: neither are against the concept of government regulation; they are not anarchists. That is a red herring. In fact, both embrace it where they believe it's needed to protect individual and community life and liberty. However, both are against excessive or confisatory regulation. Now you may disagree with what is considered excessive or confisatory, but that's a different issue. In fact I think even libertarians and conservatives could find debate space on either side of this particular issue. I don't think that would be inconsistent or unprincipled.


In my book, Libertarians are made from the same cloth as any off the shelf conservative. If anything, Libertarians are simply conservatives who just want to smoke dope and get laid, or at least not afraid to admit such things.
 
if this gets approved...

i will be picking up ear plugs to use under those bose quiet comfort two headphones to keep out the rude jackass on the plan talking loud into his phone on speaker phone and holding it in front of his face.


Please DOT! Ban cell phones in flight.
 
And if they don't, you can show them the door. :D

ATC: Southwest 1225, traffic 12 o'clock, 5 miles descending out of 12,000, passenger on a cell phone, we're not talking to him.

SWA1225: Traffic in sight, Southwest 1225.

ATC: Southwest 1225, maintain visual separation.

SWA1225: Wilco, Southwest 1225.

:D

BL.
 
It really is a difference if the person sitting next to you is talking to the person next to him or into a mobilephone. If he is talking to the person sitting next to him, he will face away from you. If he is talking into a phone he will face forward (or even towards you). When in a confined space like an airplane every little thing matters.

Here's a hint for you. In *any* situation, the odds that the person talking is facing away from you is dependent on where *you* are in relation to the person talking.

The guy on the phone will likely be facing forward. So he'll be facing you if you're in front of him, and he'll be facing away from you if you're behind him.

If this is really a major concern for you, get seats as far back in your chosen section of the plane as possible. That will mean fewer people behind you talking, and have the side benefit of putting you near a solid surface which will absorb/block sounds from the sections behind yours.

The guy talking to another person will, indeed, likely be facing that person. However, there's no guarantee that that person isn't in the same direction as you. Heck. He could be talking across the aisle to the guy in the window seat next to you. (Some people are just naturally sociable like that.)

It's not like the guy on the phone is going to seek you out, put his mouth right up to your ear, and shout into his phone. :rolleyes:
 
In my book, Libertarians are made from the same cloth as any off the shelf conservative. If anything, Libertarians are simply conservatives who just want to smoke dope and get laid, or at least not afraid to admit such things.

Then explain, for example why Libertarians are pro marajuana legalization (not just decriminalization) or on the "pro-choice" side of the abortion debate. I suggest your personal bias is unable to accept objective definitions. Libertarians, by definition, are against any regulation affecting personal liberty -- social & economic. Paleocons are for social behavioral regulation but against micro-managed business regulation. Both are against offensive war actions.

Bottom line - just as liberals are not communists or socialists or as you say "cut from the cloth any more than libertarians are of conservatives. I think maybe if people of all ideologies put down there personal biases and hatred for a moment & sought common ground actual good could get down. But everything is a all or none blame game name calling power play so we are mired in the slop we wallow in.
 
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