
Delta CEO: No Voice Calls on Our Flights - kudu
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Delta-CEO-No-Voice-Calls-on-Our-Flights-127069
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georgemcbay
I'm not a big fan of people who are always on their phones but I don't think
disallowing them on planes really solves any actual real world problem. Those
chatterboxes who need to be talking will just continue to annoy the stranger
sitting next to them or chatterbox with their friend sitting next to them if
they are travelling in a group. Either way I need to filter them out with
headphones or whatever.

And while I have no interest in spending the majority of even a short flight
talking on phones, it would sometimes be very convenient to be able to make a
quick call to someone waiting at the airport 10 minutes before a flight lands
or something like that. Throwing out that sort of convenience to get rid of a
distraction like someone talking on their phone in an environment that is
already inherently full of really loud sound distractions seems like a silly
move to me.

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bradleyjg
The guy behind me on the train this morming was traveling by himself. Other
than the 15 minutes he spent loudly participating in a settlement conference
call (violating client confidentiality I might add) he was perfectly quiet.
There was no evidence that he was a compulsive chatterbox, he just found it
convienient to take a call right then and didn't care how many people he
bothered.

While it is true that other people have been very annoying on the train by
talking to each other it is not true that banning telephone calls would have
no salutary effect.

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nisse72
If you'd been travelling with SJ (Swedish railway) you could have chosen a
quiet section, where cell phones are expected to be turned off and even
conversations are discouraged.

[http://www.sj.se/sj/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=189&a=34903&l=en](http://www.sj.se/sj/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=189&a=34903&l=en)

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moogly
In my experience (every day for 14 months in the quiet section), some people
don't give a rat's ass though, and ignore the signs and plaques. It wasn't
uncommon to see/hear sub 10-yo kids there either, and woe unto you if you
attempt to explain to the parent that they are sitting in a quiet section. The
ultimate fault is of course on SJ for not making it more obvious that the
booked seats are in the quiet section during the booking process, however.

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krschultz
When did all customers become "users". Delta has passengers. Delta has
customers. They do not have users.

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melling
This is the #1 comment? It's kind of irrelevant.

By the way, Delta doesn't use the word 'user' in the original memo.

[http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=2206](http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=2206)

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sn0v
Seems to me like most airlines stand to gain a lot of money by creating new
sections that allow for talking within the planes, and ones that don't. People
would probably pay extra for the latter.

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loceng
Not sure you can really do that. Even if it's a space with 4-8 seats sectioned
off. If they're all planning on talking on the phone, I could see that being
annoying for eachother. Otherwise if they were completely sealed off sections,
they'd be charging a small fortune to compensate for the lost seat revenue.

~~~
JohnTHaller
If it helps, I'd pay good money to have a front row seat if they had a section
right next to the section where all the folks who can't wrap their brains
around not talking for 3 hours are forced to all sit and drive each other
insane.

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sakura_k
Close your eyes and picture the last time you saw a clueless chatterbox
gabbing on a cell phone. What do you remember? The nails-on-chalkboard voice?
The hideous oversharing? Think deeper. Think of the flapping hands and the
upper body articulation. Think of how oblivious that chatterbox was to any
social cues, subtle or overt, that the world at large might not wish to share
quite so deeply in its private discourse. Now imagine you're trapped 17" away
(average distance between passengers' centers of mass on an international
flight) from that clueless gesticulating chatterbox for 8 hours. If you
honestly think that's no problem I won't call you a hypocrite. For me, cell
phone chats go right down with cigarettes and guns as things that are so awful
that even trapped air passengers shouldn't have to endure them.

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diminoten
Thing is, I can't picture the last time I saw a clueless chatterbox gabbing on
a cell phone.

I dunno who these people are I'm supposed to be afraid of. The face of the
enemy is not known to me.

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alwaysinshade
Charge a not-inconsequential fee for in-air calls so that people only use it
if it's absolutely necessary. Perhaps make the charge go up exponentially with
time so that calls remain brief.

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qq66
That's exactly how it used to be with the in-flight air phones (except the
exponential part, it wasn't needed with calls costing $10 a minute).

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spinlock
This is a huge advantage when you're trying to win business from curmudgeons
like me.

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jmspring
My favorite instances of transit chatterboxes have occurred in Italy.
Pedestrians and those on trains, on their phone and very "vocal" with their
hand gestures. It made for amusing people watching.

Personally, I don't care either way about voice calls on flights at this
point. Aside from when my wife and I are traveling and trying to converse, I
am usually fully checked out with my in ear monitors and music/video, so I
rarely hear much -- I have to remove the IEM to interact w/ airline staff for
things like drinks, food, etc.

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enscr
Flights should be like movie theaters when it comes to using your phone. Don't
spoil the ambiance for everyone with your chatter. A message is fine. But for
voice, kindly step out.

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ekianjo
Step out of the plane ? :) More seriously, if people have to move to make a
call, this will cause a mess in the economy section, where seats are narrow
and you need to step on people's feet to move around. And that will make the
job of air hostesses way harder when it comes to moving around with their
carts, too.

There's hardly a good way to do that in a plane.

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enscr
If you are dying to talk on a plane (unless it's an emergency), please use
this to respect the comfort of other passengers.

[http://www.ostrichpillow.com/wp-
content/themes/things/img/he...](http://www.ostrichpillow.com/wp-
content/themes/things/img/header/OSTRICH-PILLOW_Studio-Banana-THiNGS_kawamura-
ganjavian_03.jpg)

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FigBug
Can you actually get a cell signal in an airplane? I guess you can or this
wouldn't be an issue. I've never been able too in the few moments before I
turn airplane mode on.

~~~
vellum
Delta has wifi on some flights, so there's always Skype.

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manicbovine
This was an interesting and quaint sentiment in 1993. Now it's an attitude
shared by overbearing grandmas and hipsters alike.

The culture police need to move on. I don't like loud conversations, but it's
a jet plane - not a damn library. (And at least my librarian does not
infantilize me)

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ericd
That talking on the phone or the train or the bus is rude isn't some quaint
notion that is going to go away. It's very grating to listen to a lot of one
sided conversations, and planes are places that a lot of people like to sleep.

~~~
manicbovine
Yes, and traffic is annoying too. I nonetheless want to have motorized
vehicles. I'd similarly like to use my cellphone and want for other adults to
make that decision for themselves. If other people irritate me, then I'll go
buy some earplugs.

But really, it's a jet plane. Jet engines are really quite loud. Who expects
silence on a plane? (nevermind the crying babies, captain announcements, odd
two-sided conversations, etc...)

Maybe the best retort to my comment is simply "then don't fly Delta because
their customers don't want cellphones on planes."

~~~
ericd
There's a very large difference between white noise and conversation. I'm
pretty surprised that I have to point that out. Then again, you're arguing
that we should become less considerate as a society.

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manicbovine
Or perhaps that the silence mongers should become more considerate.

And white noise tends to drown out human voices. I'm pretty surprised that I
have to point that out.

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ericd
It doesn't drown them out very effectively at the distances you're dealing
with in a plane, and cell phones would be worse as people would be talking
louder than normal into them. I stepped off a plane an hour ago, and I'm
absolutely sure that your proposal would make an already somewhat unpleasant
process much worse.

Silence in public places is a coping strategy for crowded environments - it's
the least intrusive thing you can do to the other people in your space. It's
like the difference between jumping around and shuffling quietly when you're
in the middle of a crowd - one may be more fun for the person jumping around,
but it's selfish, because it makes everyone else's experience less fun, as
their toes get mashed on.

That's really the crux of it. Talking on your cell phone when you're mashed up
against other people is a purely selfish act. That's why it will always be
considered rude.

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manicbovine
White noise is a more effective sound barrier in small spaces like planes.
This is why the captain's announcements must be broadcast in very high-pitched
tones.

Perhaps someone's need for a phone call is more important than my desire for
quiet. I don't know, it's completely irrelevant to me because I don't go
around looking for things to get offended about.

As a sidenote, I could make your same basic argument about crying babies, and
yet nobody would take me seriously if I proposed a ban on babies.

