FAA Advisory Committee Recommends Relaxation of Electronic Device Restrictions on Commercial Aircraft

The Federal Aviation Administration advisory committee has recommended that electronic device restrictions on commercial aircraft be relaxed. According to the committee, airline passengers should be permitted to use smartphones, tablets, e-readers, and other personal electronic devices during taxi, takeoff and landing.

The 28-member committee agreed on the recommendations during a closed-door meeting, the officials said. The recommendations will be included in a report to be delivered to the FAA early next week, they said.

Current rules prohibit the use of electronic devices such as the iPad or the iPhone below 10,000 feet, which means airline passengers are instructed to power off their devices as the plane ascends and descends. Pilots and crew, however, are allowed to use iPads during all phases of flight and many airlines have replaced pilot flight bags with iPads to reduce weight and save money.

united_pilots_ipad-1
The ban has been in place to prevent electronic devices such as cell phones from interfering with cockpit equipment, but modern planes are designed to prevent electronic interference.

The Federal Aviation Administration began reexamining the regulations that ban electronic device usage below 10,000 feet last year, and in March, the FAA’s advisory committee reported that it hoped to loosen device restrictions by the end of the year.

Under today’s recommendation, passengers would be able to use most devices, though some, like Apple’s iPhone, would need to be switched to airplane mode. Downloading data, browsing the web, and talking on the phone would remain prohibited, though reading e-books, listening to music, watching movies, and playing games would be permitted during all phases of flight.

The recommendation will be delivered to the Federal Aviation Administration next week, but it remains up to the FAA to decide whether to follow the recommendations of the committee. The FAA created the committee and was involved in committee deliberations, so it is likely that some of the changes will be implemented, though a timeline for the change is thus far unknown.

Popular Stories

Mayday Calendar

Apple Acquisition Hints at Upgraded Calendar App on iOS 19 or Beyond

Friday May 9, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple acquired Canadian startup Mayday Labs in April 2024, according to a European Commission listing, spotted by French blog MacGeneration. The acquisition had not received widespread attention from tech publications until now. Apple is legally required to report certain acquisitions to the European Commission, under the terms of the EU's Digital Markets Act. Mayday Labs founder Jeremy...
Nineth iOS 19 Feature

iOS 19 Beta is a Month Away With These New Features for Your iPhone

Thursday May 8, 2025 7:37 am PDT by
The first iOS 19 beta is just one month away, and there are already many new features and changes that are expected with it. Apple should seed the first iOS 19 beta to developers immediately following the WWDC 2025 keynote, which is scheduled for Monday, June 9. Following beta testing, the update should be released to the general public in September. Below, we recap the key iOS 19 rumors...
fortnite apple featured

Epic Games Submits Fortnite to U.S. App Store

Friday May 9, 2025 9:57 am PDT by
As promised, Epic Games today submitted Fortnite to the U.S. App Store, and if approved by Apple, it will mark the first time that the Fortnite app has been available in the United States since 2020. Fortnite will include options to purchase in-app currency from the web rather than through in-app purchase, which is what got the game banned to begin with. This time, though, Apple has been...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full iOS 18.5 Release Notes

Tuesday May 6, 2025 2:17 pm PDT by
Apple today seeded the release candidate version of iOS 18.5 to developers and public beta testers, giving us a look at the final version of the update that will be provided to the public next week. With the release candidate, Apple provided release notes, so we have a more complete look at the new features that are included in the update, including those that weren't found during the beta...
AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Tuesday April 29, 2025 1:30 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
top stories 2025 05 10

Top Stories: iOS 18.5 Release Imminent, iPhone Rumors for 2025 and Beyond, and More

Saturday May 10, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
With Apple's developer conference where it will show off iOS 19 just a month away, the company is wrapping up work on iOS 18.5 ahead of an imminent release to deliver a few new features and updates. This week also saw a number of iPhone-related rumors, encompassing not only this year's iPhone 17 lineup but also Apple's plans for 2026 and 2027, even as Apple's Eddy Cue suggested AI could make ...
iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

WSJ: Apple Weighing Price Hikes for iPhone 17 Lineup Without Blaming Tariffs

Monday May 12, 2025 3:36 am PDT by
Apple is considering raising prices for its upcoming iPhone 17 models set to release this fall, according to people familiar with the matter cited by The Wall Street Journal. The company reportedly aims to pair the potential price hikes with new features and design changes to justify the increased cost to consumers, rather than attributing them to U.S. tariffs on goods from China. The...

Top Rated Comments

Kurwenal Avatar
152 months ago
these restrictions were nonsense



but what's so wrong with having them?

I dunno, how about the fact that they are nonsense?
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
troop231 Avatar
152 months ago
I'm OK with this as long as people text, play games, or listen to their headphones. I'm not Ok with this if people are talking loudly on their phone.
Yeah! I wish those people would step outside to place their call, preferably during takeoff :D
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rols Avatar
152 months ago
And tomorrow morning I fly to LA!... a week too early to take full advantage of this new policy.

A week? In a week it goes to the FAA, who then decide what they want to do about it and start the rule-making process which may eventually result in the rules being changed. Then those rules go to the airlines who decide whether they are going to relax their policies and change their safety videos (even if the FAA says you can, that's a minimum policy, the airlines are free to continue to enforce something stricter) and then, only then, will anyone be taking advantage of anything.

I'm pessimistically going for a year or two .. and another 10 before other aviation authorities in other parts of the world decide to follow suit, if they do.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AngerDanger Avatar
152 months ago
Holy recycled photograph, Batman! (https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/25/faa-still-looking-at-digital-device-use-during-takeoff-and-landing/)
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Illusion986 Avatar
152 months ago
Definitely about time! So many rules are active from 10-20 years ago that no longer make sense.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kdarling Avatar
152 months ago
I see the same questions and comments over and over again, from people are obviously neither pilots nor engineers. Let's review some:

But my radio / device is in receive only mode.

ALL digital electronics are transmitters. CPUs require oscillators at MHZ to GHz frequencies. Those are transmitters. Even receive only simple transistor radios have oscillators that transmit.

I don't understand why pilots can use iPads but I can't.

The use of those two iPads in the cockpit has taken most airlines over a year to test and get approved. There is no way that those results carry over to dozens of other people using electronics.

How can electronics so far from the cockpit interfere?

The radio antennas, anti-collision antennas, their wires, and all the modern electronic control wires run through the cabin. You can easily be just a few feet away from one of those. There are cases where pilots have gotten emergency automatic climb/descend commands that likely came from passenger electronics in a seat nearby one of those cables.

Why aren't they worried about outside interference as much?

An airplane is what's called a Faraday Cage, because it's a closed metal tube (or a composite with embedded metal for lightening protection). This prevents outside signals from entering the cabin (except through the windows). It also tends to keep the signals that originate inside, inside and bouncing around.

But interference can't bring down a plane, so why should I worry?

Text messages don't stop a car's engine from working, yet they have caused many wrecks and deaths.

Interference, as in disabling something, is usually not the problem. The problem is causing distractions to the pilots or interference to instruments. Safe flight, especially when in the airport area for landing or takeoff, is highly dependent on good communications and no distractions. Non-pilots don't realize that it takes very little to cause an aviation accident, especially when low and slow and in a crowded airspace. All it needs is a chain of little mistakes.

If it's dangerous, why do they allow usage above 10,000 feet?

10,000 feet is also where speed limits change, radio comm rules change, separation distances change, all sorts of things change.

This is because the more altitude you have, the more time that pilots have to debug a problem.

But some airliners have WiFi

Above 10,000 feet. They also use low power, and expect the passenger devices to likewise use low power. See below.

Got an example of an interference?

I have previously posted quite a few examples from the NASA database. GSM buzz, false anti-collision alarms, navigation instrument wonkiness, and autopilot shut-offs are the main ones.

Handled high up, they're not so bad. Within the airport environment, they're a potential accident chain cause.

Here's a good example: Recently, Boeing engineers were certifying one of their airliner models for WiFi. Quite by accident, they found that some laptops ramped up their WiFi power, causing the plane's WiFi to ramp up, and the interference caused the pilots LCD displays to go blank. (!) They fixed it by adding more display shielding, but ...

Consider if that had happened while landing at night or in clouds. It's been proven many times that without working instruments in dark or sightless conditions, a pilot's (and by extension, the passengers') life expectency is measured in minutes. (There was a 747 that crashed on takeoff at night, because of faulty reading instruments. The pilot accidentally rolled it upside down into the sea.)

Would you risk your familiy, or your child's life, just to use your iPad a few minutes more?

I think, until everything on an airliner is shielded and all signals sent by fiber optics, that this is a mistake.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)