Flight Attendants Lost Their Tantrum Suit To Keep Bitching About Our Electronic Devices On Flights
from the awwwwww dept
Perhaps, like me, you've never really understood the curious ban some airflights and airlines have had on mobile and electronic devices during flights, take-offs, and landings. Perhaps, like our Jefe, Mike Masnick, you've dismissed the requests from flight attendants that those devices be fully powered down out of hand, because you too are a rebel the likes for which this world is wholly unprepared. And maybe you too cheered when the FAA summarily dismissed these silly rules way back in 2013, thinking that the madness of a few moments without our favorite devices had finally come to an end.
But then, as you may know, the Association of Flight Attendants sued the FAA in order to retain the ability to lord over your smart-phones, tablets, and computers on flights. Notably, the AFA's filing made essentially zero claims having anything to do with the safety of electronic devices on the flights. Instead, their argument centered on whether the power to decide whether flight attendants could treat passengers like children who hadn't finished their vegetables resided with the FAA, or if the AFA should have some input.
Well, the court has ruled and has firmly told the AFA and flight attendants to go dangle.
In this case, it really does not matter whether Notice N8900.240 is viewed as a policy statement or an interpretive rule. The main point here is that the Notice is not a legislative rule carrying “the force and effect of law.” Perez, 135 S. Ct. at 1204. A legislative rule “modifies or adds to a legal norm based on the agency’s own authority” flowing from a congressional delegation to engage in supplementary lawmaking. Syncor, 127 F.3d at 95.That's court-speak for "nice try, now go away." Of course the FAA can make changes to flight rules as it pleases and, when it comes to the use of devices the ban for which has always been cast in the light of flight-safety, an association for flight attendants ought to have about as much input as a doctor's receptionist should have on medical policy. This tantrum of a suit, which is all it ever was, has been dismissed and we are finally free to play Angry Birds during takeoff. Free at last, free at last.
More seriously, it's somewhat nice to see some aspect of security theater being done away with regarding anything to do with airplanes and flights. If we could just take this same tact with the rest of airport security, we'd be making a world of improvements.
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Filed Under: airplane mode, devices, faa, flight attendants, lawsuit
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Oh expect the TSA to sue to retain the ability to lord over your cavities bully disabled people and those that have special needs along with other 'minorities' (while swearing it's not racial profiling). No, can't have their tools to show their full contempt for all passengers taken away.
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Re:
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Welcome to Amerika
Do not let your children out on their own, CPS will steal them from you and the rest of us will not fucking care.
Do not assert your rights to Cops, Judges, or DA's, they will treat you even more like a criminal and the rest of us will not fucking care.
Do not buy a plane ticket because you will lose every last 4th amendment right you 'think' you have 'cus terrorism'. You will be treated like human trash, fined, or taken to jail and the rest of us will not fucking care.
Land of the coward and home of the civil slave!
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Flight Attendant is your Mom
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Re: Flight Attendant is your Mom
But in the town, it was well known when they got home at night, their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them
within inches of their lives.
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Re: Re: Flight Attendant is your Mom
Great, now Roger Waters is going to come in here and complain about Techdirt being a gallery of rogues, stealing his precious (work) without even so much as an attribution. Those hobbits, always stealing the precious.
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Re: Work from HOME with gourmet scented
(sorry, couldn't help but feed this post - comic opportunities are hard to find)
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Re: Re: Work from HOME with gourmet scented
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Tantrum Suit
Then it hit me: "Oh, lawsuit..."
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Re: blades?
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There *were* legitimate concerns about mobile phones' electronic interference, enough to justify banning them.
BUT
those concerns have proven to be groundless, so the rule got dropped.
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The biggest farce about the whole thing is that the range of interference has always been more or less limited to a few feet. There is about 0 chance of interfering with the cockpit instruments with a cell phone from the back of a 747...
I once got told on an asian airline that if i didn't turn off my cell phone the cell tower would direct interference to the plane. As if the cell tower could somehow pinpoint my phone at 30 000 feet and direct a laser like beam of microwaves straight at me... They also told me this as we were somewhere over the middle of the pacific ocean. That seemed to be the justification of why mobile phones were banned for the entirety of the 13 hour flight.
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Honestly, at this point, we restrict electronic devices for the same reason you wear those ridiculous lead bibs when getting an x-ray at the dentist. Modern dental x-rays produce less radiation than walking around outside for a day or a few hours flying on an airplane; the "protection" is entirely for show. Why? People would get nervous if you suddenly didn't need it anymore, and rather than explain it over and over, they hand you the stupid bib.
If we think about it logically, if the electromagnetic field of a bunch of handheld electronic devices is such an issue, why are airlines replacing flight manuals with iPads? After all, those are right next to all your instruments, and presumably would be able to be referenced during flight.
Never mind. If I bothered to try and keep track of every stupid thing we do because someone thought it was a good idea, regardless of a complete lack of evidence, I'd never think about anything else.
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This does remind me of when my teacher refused to let me word-process a report...
We just fear the threat of disrupting technology.
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A movie theater can say "No drinks allowed that aren't purchased from our concession stand," for example, so why couldn't an airline say, "No Angry Birds during takeoff?"
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This won't stop the behavior, just the legitimacy / justification of that behavior.
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Give them some credit... not much, but some.
Similarly, the most dangerous portions of a flight are during takeoff and landing and it's important passengers be able to respond to verbal commands in the event of an emergency during those times.
To that end, the AFA has every right to weigh in on polices that affect their member's ability to perform their primary role, herding cats in an emergency.
To borrow Tim's (poor) medical analogy, it's like the nurses association saying we need to keep medical waiting rooms quiet because it gets in the way of the real work being done in the back office.
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Re: Give them some credit... not much, but some.
But that's hardly unique to electronic devices, so it would be a bit odd for that to be a reason for the ban.
Also, if there's an actual emergency in progress, I seriously doubt that anyone would continue to be absorbed by their audio feed. They'd be too busy freaking out.
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Re: Re: Give them some credit... not much, but some.
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Re: Give them some credit... not much, but some.
The assertion that somehow because it is electronic its a safety issue doesn't hold up under scrutiny, because you bring up devices that can and do replicate non-electronics.
It similar to cell phone bans. The ban handling the cell phone, not its use. Because talking on the cell phone is analogous to talking to a person sitting next to you, and they dont ban that.
Your big concerns actually appear to be with headphones. which if they are a serious safety threat could be handled with a narrowly tailored policy. But thats not what the AFA wanted. They wanted, on proceedural grounds, to 'roll back the rules to october 2013'.
While they stated they objected to the rule on safety grounds, they fought it on proceedural grounds. And the court has ruled that proceedure was followed.
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Re: Re: Give them some credit... not much, but some.
This is a lot like the cell phone's while driving issue. It's not really about talking or texting, it's about distracted driving. I personally think laws that focus on cell phones miss the point of addressing distracted driving, but I don't fault organizations that get fixated on the cell phones because I think ultimately, some change is better than nothing.
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Re: Re: Give them some credit... not much, but some.
I've actually been on a flight where I was told not to read during takeoff. Can't remember where it was now, but I was simultaneously annoyed, and impressed that at least they were being consistent.
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One little thing
Uh, that's "tack," not "tact."
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Re: One little thing
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Actually, you completely missed the point, and you'll regret it later.
So yes, you should feel like a dummy for cheering a court stripping you of the very rights you are worked up about.
(Expect more of this, Obama has stacked the DC Circuit with a majority of Dem appointees now, it's the most liberal court of appeals in the country, and it has jurisdiction over almost every federal agency rulemaking.)
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Re: Actually, you completely missed the point, and you'll regret it later.
Getting to stack the courts is part of the job of the President.
Partisan politics are neither the cause of nanny states nor overreaches of authority, including the FAA and finger-wagging flight attendants.
Personally, the TSA has been keeping me off the planes for years, even when I understand the slight increase of safety risk.
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Federalize everything
Thank you Senator. Let us never forget the favor you did for Americans for generations yet to come.
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4th Amendment
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