May 13, 2008

• Amazing how people convince themselves rules may be broken at will.

  Did y'all hear about the guy on a Southwest Airlines flight from Austin to Dallas?  His father was in critical condition with a heart ailment - poor man! - and his son flew up to Dallas to be with him.

  Reasonable. 

  What wasn't reasonable was that, in violation of the law, he apparently kept his cell phone turned on during the flight so he could receive updates as to his parent's condition, and having gotten a text message about it, called the hospital from the airplane.  Despite repeated requests (demands, surely?) from the flight attendants to turn it OFF already, he belligerently refused.

  The police were waiting for him when the plane landed.  Must have delayed his arrival at the hospital, don't you suppose?

  The man who used his cell phone during one of the doomed 9-11 flights, learning what was happening, sending messages to his wife, and praying with whoever it was he was talking to prior to setting forth to crash the plane into a field instead of a building, is one thing.  Using one's cell phone for personal, individual business is something else again.

  What slays me is how his "spokesman" insists upon framing the situation as the man receiving a call he felt he had to take.

  Pardonnez-moi, the point is that the man oughtn't to have been able to receive calls - or text messages - at all.  The rule is that cell phones be o-f-f, not on but ignored.  Off. 

  Safety considerations aside, I for one have zip interest in cell phone calls being permitted during flight.  Goodness knows it's bad enough to be forced to listen to loud, often inane, one-sided conversations in the doctor's waiting room, in the aisles at the grocery store, and darn near everywhere else....can you imagine being stuck for hours - and in close quarters! - listening to such drivel? 

  • 10:49 am
  • 5 Comments