Flight Mode-A Myth By Nida Siddiqui

“All cell phones must be powered off all through the flight, as they might hamper the on-board system.”
And all of a sudden, all the cell phones, which would never be powered off even on the repeated request, during a meeting or a seminar etc, will be switched off. We all believe this and do as the flight attendants ask us to do so.
Conversely, has anyone ever wondered that what exactly is a flight mode? If mobile network signals can hamper the on-board system than, how can the passengers use laptops with the internet access, using exactly the same transmission system as cell phones? And we forget the possibility that on every flight, there were always at least two to three passengers who forgot to switch their phones off.  And then there has never been any accident reported ever in the world that a plane has fallen out of the sky because of the hinder in the on-board transmission due to the cell phones signals.
This myth has been created for years now. Airlines had been putting in their best efforts to induce travelers to use the phones attached to their seat. These outlays $10 per minute and ironically, exercise the same transmission system as the mobile phones.
This strategy didn’t work but the myth lingered on; they had simply forgotten to eliminate the warning from the roll of “Dos and Don’ts” that the flight attendant has to read out before the flight takes off. Though, now with the innovation of the unexplained concept of “flight mode” in the cell phones, one can use his/her cell phone as long as they desire. But does that really make any difference? Ironically, not at all. . .