House: No cellphone calls in flight

Tag : Internet Phone Call

Members of the House of Representatives, most of whom boardairplanes almost every week, traded horror stories Thursday abouttheir worst experiences with annoying fellow passengers who talkloudly on cellphones before takeoff and after landing. One lawmakersaid his wife sat next to a woman who loudly discussed her sex lifeon the phone.
Another House member topped that with the passenger sitting himbehind on one flight who got a "dear John" phone call from eitherhis wife or sweetheart just before takeoff. The begging andpleading was just terrible to listen to, he said. Finally, with theplane ready to take off, a flight attendant had to threaten to haveU.S. Marshals drag the man off the plane before he finally put hisphone away.
A third House member raised the specter of national security,saying she had witnessed one man use his cellphone camera to takepictures of sensitive parts of the airplane.
With that, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committeeapproved by voice vote a bill that would make the current FederalAviation Administration and Federal Communication Commission ban oncellphone use during flight permanent.
The committee's action comes as the European Union is moving toallow airline passengers to talk on their cellphones during flight.Some U.S. airlines are experimenting with in-flight Internetaccess. And some lawmakers worry that domestic airlines might tryto get the cellphone ban lifted so they can charge passengers extrato sit in no-phone sections.
"I do believe this is important that we don't make what is alreadya crowded and difficult environment for the traveling public andflight attendants" worse by allowing cellphone use in-flight, saidRep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat and sponsor of the Halting AirplaneNoise to Give Us Peace (HANG UP) Act.
But Rep. John Mica, a Republican, said there are a lot of annoyingthings on airplanes, including children with dirty diapers andnoisy MP3 players, but that does not mean they should be banned.
"You are trying to legislate courtesy, folks, and that just doesn'twork," Mica said.