By Danny Sullivan
You may have heard the news this week that the European Commission has cleared the way for in-flight use of mobile phones. I’m sure that within a year or two, this will be standard on airlines the world over.
As a busy professional, my reaction was initially positive. When you work in PR, being able to stay in touch while travelling is important, and the idea of being able to circumvent those long flight blackouts is certainly appealing.
But then I paused to consider the cons. Sitting on a plane for three hours next to the guy who is trying to organize his brother’s stag party in Vegas. Or worse, sitting next to some stressed-out PR coordinating an interview for a client… (hang on…)
Yes, given the choice, even I would not want to sit next to myself in such a situation. While spoken communication is absolutely key in this business, there are still places where I think it should be verboten.
Limiting air passengers to text messages and emails would still be of huge benefit to business travellers, but airlines should think carefully before allowing normal phone calls to become part of our everyday flying experience. Air rage anyone?
