Travelers, take heart (and email your Senators)

The F.A.A. may be forced to allow you to use your carry on electronic devices in airplane mode soon.  Today, anonymous sources from within the F.A.A. released to the New York Times that they have plans to relax this rule by the end of the year.  This change does not come soon enough and it is laughable at this point that passengers can’t use their iPads and tablets to read while the student with the 9 pound text book seated next to you can continue reading happily.   If you have made the move to digital like I have, I really have no desire to carry an additional dead tree with me to pass the first and last 30 minutes of each flight.  Since pilots have had iPads in the cockpit for quite some time now and flight attendants are now using them as well, I think it is our turn.   Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri has been turning up the heat on the F.A.A. for movement on this item.  Not only has she sent a warning letter to the Administrator, Michael Huerta, but she is also planning to introduce legislation to help ‘encourage’ the F.A.A. to follow through should they stall out again.   If this is a change that you too would like to ensure goes into effect this year, I encourage you to email your state Senators to help reinforce the point.