Dissatisfaction builds as people can’t fathom why they must shut down gagdets. | AP Photos Who landed fliers with gadget ban?

You know the drill — the plane is taking off or landing, so it's time to power down your Kindles and iPods.

But don't blame the bureaucrats at the Federal Aviation Administration. It's your airline that's keeping you down.


The FAA’s rule is simple: Any airline can let passengers use gadgets throughout the entire flight, as long as the airline can show the agency that those devices are safe to use on its planes.

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Airlines just haven't been eager to jump through the hoops and red tape — or pony up the money — for the testing that would let their customers play Mumford & Sons all flight long.

"They have been able to go through the process for allowing [gadget use],” said one FAA source. The airlines have simply chosen not to, in large part because of the cost.

Still questions remain about how to let passengers use their favorite devices while protecting safety, a goal everyone involved in the issue supports. The basic concern is that a signal from an electronic device could interfere with avionics or communications equipment on an airplane, causing it to malfunction.

Cruising at 30,000 feet, a pilot could easily handle a glitch on a cockpit screen that momentarily appears to shift the plane’s pitch, for instance. But that scenario is particularly dangerous during the riskiest phases of flight — takeoff and landing.

Regulators and researchers also insist that while one errant signal — such as from a pilot’s iPad — probably wouldn’t be enough to down a plane, 150 of them bombarding the plane’s equipment is another matter entirely.

“Two iPads, they can test that and make sure those are kosher,” said one Senate aide. “But 300 iPads, we’re not sure what that means — or a mix of devices for an additive effect, that could be a problem.”

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Critics of the current approach also say the problem is with the FAA's engineer mindset, which requires an airline to prove the safety of a dizzying array of combinations — say, an iPhone 5 on a Boeing 787, or a Kindle Fire HD on an Airbus A380 — all of which add up to an expensive proposition.

Even if an airline went through the expense of testing and data-gathering, there's no guarantee the FAA would find the results adequate.

Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for industry trade group Airlines for America, said that under the current FAA standards, each type of device has to be tested on each model of airplane. The process would have to be repeated — on flights without passengers — for any new devices that enter the market.

“Given the cost of fuel and complexity, such testing can be cost-prohibitive,” Medina said, adding that the industry is counting on the FAA to recommend streamlining their standards and practices “in ways that preserve safety.”

The FAA also can require the carrier to control passengers’ use of the devices as a condition of approval.

It isn’t that the airlines don’t want to give passengers what they want. In recent comments filed to the FAA, Delta Air Lines said it supports expanded use of gadgets in-flight, though it remains staunchly against allowing passengers to talk on their cellphones. (No worries there: The FCC bans all in-flight cellphone use.)

“Airline travel must adapt to the needs of the traveling public, but it must do so with a plan that ensures critical aircraft systems will not be affected by these devices,” Delta wrote.

In the meantime, pressure driven by consumer dissatisfaction continues to build as people who rely on electronics can’t fathom why they have to holster them on a plane.

And the FAA has opened itself up to some serious criticism with its recent decision to allow pilots to use iPads in the cockpit as “electronic flight bags,” replacing the bags stuffed with flight manuals they are otherwise required to carry. That smacks of hypocrisy to casual observers and encourages scofflaws.

The FCC has urged the FAA to explicitly allow “greater use of tablets, e-readers, and other portable electronics devices.” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has even threatened legislation to force the issue.

Amid the controversy, the data on potential interference is far from conclusive, as much of it relies on anecdotal accounts of disturbance recounted by pilots and crew. But what does exist has been worrying enough to result in the current cautious approach.

Examples culled from a NASA compilation of interference reports include numerous reports of glitches that pilots suspected were due to illicit gadget-use. One fairly typical example recounts a 757’s fuel gauge blanking after takeoff, then later functioning properly before landing. “Crew suspects possible [gadget] interference.”

The most definitive set of data was gathered in 2006 by the RTCA, a nonprofit standard-setting group that functions as an advisory body. It concluded, in essence, that the potential for interference was great enough that it was prudent to maintain a restrictive policy during critical moments of flight.

But the lack of a smoking gun is galling to passengers, and their elected officials.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), the top Republican in charge of aviation in the House, said that if safety is a concern, “we have to have it clearly explained to us why.”

“First and foremost is safety. We don’t even want to come close to anything that jeopardizes safety,” LoBiondo said. “But if it’s just because a bureaucrat thinks it’s not a good idea …”

Last summer, the FAA convened a committee made up of anyone with a dog in the fight, tasked with coming up with recommendations about how regulators, the airline industry and device manufacturers can meet the growing call for expanded in-flight gadget use. Their recommendations are due this summer, and could form the basis for regulatory changes the FAA might put forward.

“What we’re essentially doing by putting this Aviation Rulemaking Committee together is doing what they [the airlines] weren't willing to do sort of for them,” the FAA source said.

Potential changes on the table could mean a standard for device manufacturers to adhere to that would be considered “approved” for use aboard planes. The committee might recommend new testing procedures that would make it easier for similar devices and planes to be sorted into “buckets” for the purposes of testing. It could mean requirements that airplanes have greater signal shielding. It could even mean some sort of interference detection system that cabin crews could deploy.

Whatever solution is advanced, almost everyone involved in the topic wants to make sure flight attendants and cabin crew aren’t asked to perform the Sisyphus-like task of checking to ensure every gadget brought on board the plane is in compliance or being operated properly.

Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said that with technology evolving as rapidly as it is, it could be very difficult for flight attendants to police them.

“If someone’s got the latest and greatest device, then how does the flight attendant know that’s a safe device, or that it’s in the proper airplane mode?” Caldwell said. “That’s the sort of thing that does create challenges, and it’s distracting for flight attendants as well.”

For McCaskill, the committee is a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough. In a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, McCaskill said it’s “preposterous to think that an e-reader in a passenger’s hands during takeoff is anymore a threat to other passengers or crew members than a hardback book.”

McCaskill goes on to say that while the committee is a good idea, it “creates the potential for the process to drag on indefinitely” because of “entrenched interests.” She said Huerta needs to exercise more personal leadership to “compel the needed changes to the current rules.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 6:36 p.m. on March 29, 2013.