Posted 2/07/2009 07:10:00 PM by Douglas

Wi-fi comes to your airplane. What's the big deal?

Wireless Internet service is starting to spread among airlines in the United States — Delta and American have installed it on more than a dozen planes each, and several other carriers are planning to test it.

For the airlines, always desperate for new sources of revenue, offering the service — about $10 for three hours and more for longer flights — was an easy call. And many passengers will cheer the development as an end to Web withdrawal.

Doesn't sound like $10 for three hours is that steep, if you really need it, but considering it's not something anyone has ever had before, it's hard to justify the need. Let the whining begin:

Delta has told its flight attendants to treat overly enthusiastic users of Wi-Fi — who might, say, forget to mute the volume on YouTube videos of skateboarding dogs — like people who imbibe too much. In other words, cut them off if they start bothering others around them.

“It’s just like alcohol,” Mr. Goswami said. “The flight attendants understand how to interact with that.”

No, it's not anything like alcohol, but thanks for playing. People can already watch DVDs on their laptops, so how is youtube any different than what the sky-waitresses are already dealing with?

But the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 55,000 employees at 20 airlines, though not Delta, views Wi-Fi as a potential threat to flight attendants’ ability to keep order in the cabin, said Corey Caldwell, a union spokeswoman.

“Our duties involve securing the safety of the cabin, not acting as censor police,” Ms. Caldwell said. “It just adds another layer of duties inside the cabin, which take away from the main requirement that flight attendants are on board for.”

And that is dispensing peanuts and Diet Coke? But it gets better:

Ms. Caldwell said the flight attendants’ union also feared that terrorists plotting a scheme on a plane could use Wi-Fi to communicate with one another on board and with conspirators on the ground.

Which explains why Ms. Caldwell is the spokeswoman for the Flight Attendant's union and not some other postion on the planet that might require having a fucking clue. Yeah, that's it. Terrorists are waiting for MSN or AOLIM to take control of the 3:15 to Pittsburgh. Guess who else (besides me) doesn't strictly adhere to the "turn off electronic devices" announcements? That guy that's about to hijack the plane. Sweet sassy molassy these people are dumb. But wait for it, because here comes the money quote:

The Federal Aviation Administration currently bans use of cellphones aboard planes because they may interfere with a jet’s navigation system. But Wi-Fi, as most technophiles know, offers a way around that ban, since the wireless connections can be used to tap into Skype and other programs that offer telephone service via a computer.

Well, no, they don't. It's not the FAA, it's the FCC that makes you listen to that inane announcement eight times (12 on a SouthWest flight) about turning off your cell phone and other electronic devices. Honestly, if you thought that the adolescent gastropod in 27G could bring down the plane by turning on his GameBoy, would anyone ever set foot on an airplane again? Of course not, but yet this is till their position because they think we're as dumb as they are.