Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeD
If you're in the US it's afaik a federal crime to disobey a flight attendant. Now if they instructed you to do something that put you or others at risk, I'm sure when it came to a trial you'd get off scott free and the flight attendant would be out of a job, but when it comes to them enforcing airline rules that are in place on the grounds of safety, I'd expect a court wouldn't be so lenient.
@ProfCrash: The reason they probably don't penalise not following the initial announcment is that it's easy for passengers not to hear it or claim they didn't. You don't have that luxury once a flight attendant has specifically told you. I would however be rather miffed if a plane was delayed because the attendant had to visit each passenger in turn to ask them to turn their device off.
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This is a rule dating back to the stone age of electronics. That not even the airlines are taking it seriously is shown by the simple fact that they don't scan for devices that are not turned off. It would be extremely easy to just move through the plane and locate every device that has not been powered off.
Also please note that they want to abandon that rule. If there was even 1/1,000,000th of a % of a chance that something might go wrong if every single passenger on a plane had a dozen devices running they would not even consider it. There are only two things standing in the way. The first is bureaucratic inertia, the second are passengers who through years and years of conditioning have become afraid of this ghost. Just imagine if they rescinded the rule and then a plane had some problem. Even if it was completely unrelated (and all studies have shown that there is no interference) that decision would be blamed in the press and heads would roll.
So it is quite likely that this nonsense will continue over some time and will not be strictly enforced because the airlines know how ridiculous it is. So those of you who are afraid will just have to get over it or take the bus/boat/train.