Please, no cell phones on airplanes

Please, please, please, please, please. Don’t allow the use of cell phones on airplanes.

I can sympathize completely with the philosophy espoused by Fortune columnist Stanley Bing in a piece in the Mar. 5 issue called “Called to His Reward.” (Oddly, in their online version, it’s called “Great big cell phones in the sky,” and dated Feb. 23.) This essay describes how unbearable life will be if/when the FAA and FCC allow the use of cell phones during commercial flights.

Last week, I was flying to a meeting in the midwest U.S., routing through Denver. The moment the plane landed, a passenger two rows behind me whipped out her phone, and started making calls. She returned voicemails, she phoned her husband, she burbled baby-talk to a young child, she arranged for ground transportation, she gave instructions to her assistant, she rescheduled a meeting, she talked and talked and talked in a very loud voice.

And talked and talked. It turned out that our plane had landed early, and the gate at Denver wasn’t ready yet. So, we sat on the tarmac for about half an hour, while this well-dressed, obviously successful, young executive talked

and talked

and talked

and talked

and talked

and talked.

Everyone within at least six rows of her could hear every word of every call. Toward the end, many of us were chatting, quite audibly, about her and her calls; my seatmate and I had an active running commentary. The young executive was quite oblivious. We were all mostly bemused by her cluelessness and, frankly, self-centered rudeness.

This was bad enough.

But imagine the day when she — and many others — will talk and talk and talk throughout flight, for hours and hours. And there’s just about nothing that you can do about it. If you can’t imagine it, read Stanley Bing’s article.

For the sake of civilized society, please, FAA and FCC, please don’t allow cell phones to be used during flights.