But in the future, airlines' own entertainment offerings will matter far less than the support they offer for passengers' devices.
A flight recorder may not identify that a critical system has failed because of electromagnetic interference from passengers' devices.
The guidance system uses Bluetooth technology for local communications with the passengers' devices, the information being exchanged between two Bluetooth units through a set of slots that form a data packet.
The ACLU also wants to know what equipment the TSA uses to search, examine and extract any data from passengers' devices, as well as what kind of training TSA officers receive around screening and searching the devices.
They are also expanding the use of wireless systems on board, offering live television and considering streaming movies to passengers' own devices.
Many carriers now send flight status updates to passengers' mobile devices via text or voice messages — ideally (though not perfectly) reporting information about cancellations and delays.
We would have to know IMEI numbers for all the passengers mobile devices - this would need to be collected from each of their respective countries, as this would enable us to uniquely identify the device as being from one of the passengers - I doubt this has been done yet.
The government guidelines say passengers carrying devices which they cannot switch on "face not being allowed to bring the device onto the aircraft".
Transport Security Administration TSAA) officers are using the WORKABOUT PRO from Psion Teklogix to electronically scan boarding passes on passengers' mobile devices.
