Board a flight just about anywhere in the world, and one of the things certainly heard before takeoff is the announcement asking you to put your phone in airplane mode, or power it off entirely, and most of us end up complying without a single thought. While there’s a perfectly good reason for most of the pre-flight hassle, like baggage check, the actual reason for turning on airplane mode is more complicated.

The first time the FCC banned cellphone use on aircraft was way back in 1991. Even then, the ban only covered phones operating on the 800 MHz frequency band, and the concern was those signals messing with ground-based cellular networks, not aircraft avionics. Modern phones barely even use that band anymore, yet the rule remains unchanged. In fact, in 2005, an FCC official told Congress that picocells — essentially tiny cell towers installed inside an aircraft — had fixed the problem. 

Picocells give phones a local signal to latch onto, so that they don’t fire stronger signals trying to reach ground networks. Turns out, it has less to do with safety and more to do with keeping passengers from being at each other’s throats. 

As if that wasn’t enough, the FAA in 2012 ran its own study on the matter. The study found essentially no confirmed cases of phones actually disrupting aircraft systems. In fact, both Boeing and Airbus had already run their own tests years earlier where they bombarded their aircraft with cell phone frequencies. Of course, neither found any interference with onboard systems.

Besides <a href="https://jordangazette.com/this-is-the-biggest-monster-truck-in-the-world/”>this, another piece of strong, more recent evidence is what Europe has done. In 2022, the region formally went ahead and allowed 5G connectivity on flights. That said, this was really more of an update to an existing framework rather than something entirely new, since the European Commission had actually been reserving frequencies for in-flight mobile communications since 2008. Planes haven’t been falling out of the sky ever since, and that says a lot. So with all of that evidence stacked up, the question isn’t really whether phones are dangerous on planes. It’s why the U.S. refuses to act on what it already knows.

As it turns out, back in 2013, an attempt was actually made to lift the ban by former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, but he wasn’t able to due to pushback. Funnily, that pushback didn’t even come from engineers or safety experts. Rather, it was from airlines, the FAA, and even members of Congress, who were all worried about people talking loudly on the phone, disturbing other passengers. Wheeler’s successor Ajit Pai went as far as calling the proposal “ill-conceived” in 2017, and the FCC didn’t officially kill the effort until 2020 — seven years after it started.

When you take into account the rise in air rage incidents over the past few years, the worries don’t sound entirely nonsensical. Between 2021 and 2023, the FAA logged over 10,000 reports of passengers with air rage. Airlines and regulators likely looked at these numbers and decided to keep that inconvenience in place rather than risk worsening an already tense environment.

Now, you can argue that many airlines offer Wi-Fi, and voice calls can still be made through that, making the rule useless, but good luck making that argument when air rage incidents are on the rise. Also worth noting is that the way airplanes offer Wi-Fi in the sky is fundamentally different from cellular networks, so they don’t really pose the same risks.

Let’s just say everyone suddenly started behaving themselves on flights, and the FAA and FCC took note of that. Unfortunately, they’d likely still be resistant to the idea of getting rid of airplane mode, simply because it would be quite the bureaucratic ordeal. 

Enforcing the restrictions are two separate sections of the Code of Federal Regulations – Title 14, Section 91.21 and Title 47, Section 22.925. While the first governs aviation, the second governs telecommunications. This means that two separate federal agencies would have to decide to change their rules. So far, neither has shown interest in doing that.

Speaking on the matter, aviation consultant and former American Airlines pilot Richard Levy told Popular Science that “the U.S. is very conservative in this way. My guess is that they’re waiting for data somehow to prove [definitively] that there’s no risk.” Airline employee unions could also be a factor here, according to the report. Those groups still hold considerable lobbying power, and a quieter cabin arguably makes their members’ jobs easier.

Finally, there’s the fact that phones can’t reach cell towers on the ground anyway, so it simply doesn’t matter. For now, all you need to know is that airplane mode won’t impact your safety, but since it’s federal law to enable it, stick to it.