Will airlines finally stop forcing fliers to turn off their iPads?

Travelers rejoice as the government reconsiders much-hated rules requiring passengers to turn off their gadgets during taxi, takeoff, and landing

Soon there may be no need to power down your iPad during takeoff and landing, as the government is considering a reversal on its widely-loathed rule.
(Image credit: WESTEND61/Westend61/Corbis)

Alec Baldwin is hardly the only air traveler who doesn't like it when a flight attendant announces that all electronic devices must be powered down prior to takeoff. Experts and frequent fliers have long suspected that the rule — which ostensibly prevents our gadgets from interfering with the plane's complex equipment — is unnecessary, and might have been created just to torture us. After all, pilots are allowed to use iPads in the cockpit, so why can't we? Well, happier flights might be on the horizon: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is giving the rules a "fresh look" to determine whether e-readers and tablets (but not smartphones) actually interfere with plane avionics. Will gadgets soon be welcome aboard?

Yes. And change can't come fast enough: "About. Bloody. Time," says Jamie Condliffe at Gizmodo. "Everybody hates having to stop reading e-books, listening to music, and playing Angry Birds during takeoff." It's been six years since the FAA last conducted a study on whether electronic devices mess with plane equipment, and in the meantime, the number of "passenger bags containing Kindles" has soared. "This time we might actually see a change."

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