F.C.C. to Weigh Allowing Cellphone Use on Flights

Any change, which was placed on the agenda for the commission’s Dec. 12 meeting, is still months away, requiring a public comment period of weeks and a final draft of the rules. But it would constitute a major shift for airline passengers.

The use of cellphones during flights has been vigorously opposed by many passengers and by flight attendants, although some airlines in Asia and Europe already offer cell service. In the United States, the flight attendants union immediately urged the F.C.C. not to proceed with the proposal.

An F.C.C. official said airlines in the United States would be given the option of outfitting their planes with equipment that would allow the use of cellphones once a plane climbed above 10,000 feet, but the airlines would not be required to provide the service.

Tom Wheeler, the F.C.C. chairman, said the new rules, if adopted, would “expand consumer access and choice for in-flight mobile broadband,” meaning the commission thinks both Wi-Fi and wireless cellphone data plans could be used.

“Modern technologies can deliver mobile services in the air safely and reliably, and the time is right to review our outdated and restrictive rules,” Mr. Wheeler said in a statement. “I look forward to working closely with my colleagues, the F.A.A. and the airline industry on this review of new mobile opportunities for consumers.”

A swift negative reaction came from the Association of Flight Attendants, a union representing airline workers.

“Flight attendants, as first responders and the last line of defense in our nation’s aviation system, understand the importance of maintaining a calm cabin environment,” the union said in a statement. “Any situation that is loud, divisive and possibly disruptive is not only unwelcome but also unsafe.”

The union said polls and surveys conducted over many years found that “a vast majority of the traveling public wants to keep the ban on voice calls in the aircraft cabin.”

“In far too many operational scenarios, passengers making phone calls could extend beyond a mere nuisance, creating negative effects on aviation safety and security that are great and far too risky,” the union said.

Several airlines already provide in-flight Wi-Fi service, enabling passengers to use the Internet, email and text messaging. The F.C.C. measure would allow voice calls through the use of what is called a picocell, a small cellular base station that would be installed on a plane, collect all cellphone activity during the flight and send it down to the ground.

Airlines in the United States already have the technical ability to allow in-flight phone calls using voice connections over an onboard Wi-Fi network, but so far none have done so.

It is all but certain that vast waves of airline passengers in the United States will tell the F.C.C. their feelings about the proposal. Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration changed the rules to permit airlines to allow the use of electronics during takeoff and landing, and passengers generally rejoiced at the ability to be able to read an e-book or play a game on their tablet or smartphone.

But sitting next to someone who is chatting away for hours could quickly outweigh the common complaint of sitting next to a crying baby for the duration of a flight.

“I don’t want to have to sit next to someone who is talking on their phone the entire flight,” said Greg Pritikin, a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles. “That would be a nightmare.”

On Twitter, people also complained about the potential new rule.

“Really bummed to hear that news,” wrote Randi Zuckerberg, author of the book “Dot Complicated” (and sister of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook). “Airplanes were the last socially acceptable place to require people to unplug.”

The F.C.C. proposal would permit calls and data connections, which would allow people to surf the web on their smartphones and other devices. Airlines and a number of companies, including Gogo, have spent millions of dollars outfitting planes with Wi-Fi connections, and that business could suffer with the allowance of cellphone traffic.

But Steve Nolan, a spokesman for Gogo, said the company’s business would not be affected by the change. It already has the ability to provide in-flight phone service through its Wi-Fi connections, he said, but the commercial airlines have not permitted it so far. Gogo provides the service on some private jets.

If the F.C.C. approved the use of the cellphone equipment on airlines, the F.A.A. would still have to permit the equipment installation to ensure it did not affect passenger safety, officials said.

If the F.C.C. goes ahead with its plan on Dec. 12, it will solicit public suggestions on the proposed new rule.

After reviewing the comments, the commissioners will decide whether to approve the new regulations, either as proposed or with revisions.

The initiative comes less than three weeks after Mr. Wheeler took over as chairman of the F.C.C., but it has been in the works for months, agency officials said.

On the Road: Fast Wi-Fi on Flights May Serve the Airlines, Too

You remember Steven Slater, the fed-up JetBlue Airways flight attendant who got on the cabin speaker after his flight landed at Kennedy Airport and declared, “That’s it. I’m done”? He then grabbed two Blue Moon beers from the galley, deployed the emergency chute and slid away into infamy. Ever since, many an unhappy flight attendant has told me she’s sometimes quietly considered pulling a Slater.

Recently, on a crowded plane approaching Dallas, I watched a flight attendant collect trash in a bag with one hand while using her fingertips to hold five empty soda cans for recycling, while simultaneously checking that seat backs were in the forward position for landing. I wondered, could the airlines possibly manage to give more chores to crew members?

Why certainly! You may have read recent news reports about proposals by regulators to devote more airwave capacity to providing faster Wi-Fi connections on commercial airplanes. You may have assumed that those initiatives, in the United States and abroad, are intended mainly to allow passengers to use the Web and e-mail more efficiently.

But the fact is, despite the rapid expansion of Wi-Fi on airplanes, no one has found a profitable way to cover installation costs with the scant revenue generated by the limited number of passengers who have been willing to pay for Internet service at 35,000 feet.

The great advances in airplane Internet connections are being driven far more by the opportunities that high-speed broadband service presents for airlines themselves to essentially sell more things to the customers, whether the product is in-flight entertainment, food and drink, customized services to elite-status passengers or products at the destination, including hotel packages, sports and concert tickets, restaurant and theater reservations. On an airplane, you have a captive market, and with sophisticated technology, you can sell to passengers in very personal ways.

And, of course, flight attendants will be expected to become even more adept at using in-flight technology. The question is whether they will embrace the moment.

“We found consistently in our research, whether the markets were the U.S., Europe or Asia, that flight attendants are typically the least automated group within the airline work force,” said Andrew Kemmetmueller, the chief executive of Allegiant Systems, a technology development company that focuses on airline operations.

Allegiant Systems, based in Las Vegas, recently announced FlyDesk, a product that has an iPad-based application for processing food and beverage sales on flights. The company expects that FlyDesk’s iPad technology will evolve into many other uses in the hands of flight attendants, Mr. Kemmetmueller said.

Besides direct product sales, opportunities for customer service expand when flight attendants have in their hands not just recycled soda cans, but tablets linked by high-speed Wi-Fi to real-time flight and customer data.

“Buy on board is only one aspect. I live in Toulouse,” he said, referring to the city in France, “but have a base of operations in Las Vegas, which puts me on planes a lot.” As airlines market more flights in partnership with other airlines belonging to the same global alliance, a single long-haul flight to Las Vegas could entail a domestic European flight from Toulouse to Frankfurt, a trans-Atlantic flight on a Lufthansa A380 to San Francisco and then a domestic connection on United Airlines to Las Vegas.

Mr. Kemmetmueller echoes a familiar complaint among international passengers that partner airlines in a global alliance like Star Alliance aren’t especially adept at sharing detailed information about individual passengers and their status. United Airlines, for example, might have detailed information about the status and service requirements of a given elite passenger, but tablet-enabled technology in the hands of flight crews would make that data available for each leg of an alliance trip.

With major improvements in Wi-Fi, we’re only starting to see some of the ramifications for passengers and airlines, which depend mightily on the revenue raised by selling and marketing things other than the basic fare.

But what about that overburdened flight attendant trudging down the aisle with a stuffed trash bag?

In my experience, flight attendants complain about everything, even more so than those world-famous complainers, pilots. But Mr. Kemmetmueller insisted that putting sophisticated technology into the hands of the flight crew, and encouraging crew members to adapt it as they saw fit, overcame even dug-in resistance to performing more chores because the chores became easier. “I think an iPad trumps all,” he said.

Next we need an app to address those empty soda cans.