It’s almost a blogospheric rite of passage to bag Qantas. aj’s done it, I’m pretty sure I’m doing it now, and Rhys bowed to convention.
Rhys suggests that the ban on smartphones is likely because it would take too much effort for the in-flight crew to enforce the regulation. But that’s such a prosaic explanation, especially when ABC News reported today (my emphasis):
People travelling in business class will also soon be able to use personal digital assistants with “flight mode” after the seat belt sign goes off.
The new rule will be coming in next week.
(That said, I should note for fairness that the NEWS.com.au, Australian, AAP, and Yahoo! stories contain no mention of business class, referring only to “business passengers”. I poked around the obvious places on Qantas’s Web site, but couldn’t find anything relevant.)
