I have flown a lot (IE: 100K+ miles/year) at various points in my career, and I'm disappointed by the commentary here about flight attendants. Think for a moment about their job - every day they are interacting with hundreds of people, assessing which ones might be a problem and trying to deal with each personality type with a smile, all while balancing (often in high heels) your drink at 30,000 feet in a vehicle traveling hundreds of miles per hour AND to add insult to injury, doing so on little sleep and for very little pay. Give 'em a break, eh?
Separate from that, even as a frequent flyer, I'd rather people not have their attention stuck in their iDevice during takeoff and landing. Those are the times when a problem on the aircraft is most likely to materialize, and I'd rather not lose my ass in an accident because your attention was on Angry Birds. Further, in those minutes at the beginning of a flight if you are fooling around with your phone/kindle/etc and blocking the isle, you delay expedient loading and unloading of the aircraft. I've had colleagues busy on their [device] say things like "but, but I was just wrapping up a call, why was the flight attendant so rude!" No asshole, you were blocking the plane from loading / unloading. Think of others for a whopping ten minutes and put down the device so we can all safely load / unload and get on/off the ground.
Since I am not flying the plane, how could I possibly cause you to "lose your ass in an accident" because my attention is on Angry Birds? The emergency maneuvers performed by airline passengers require prompt obedience but not lightning reflexes. There'll be plenty of time to put down the Angry Birds.
The reason for banning electronic devices during take-off and landing is because of EM interference, not because of distraction. If you want to ban distractions you need to ban books, sudoku, and noisy kids too, the electronic bit is immaterial.
Also people are already free to use devices during loading and unloading. Your complaint is that people don't have common courtesy, but that can't be regulated by FAA (and isn't currently)
I think of flight attendants as firemen (or firewomen) serving us drinks and food. Because that's what they are. They will be the ones saving your ass if the situation comes to that.
Yeah. But I'm still trying to figure out what to think of the Sky Marshall on the flight. I guess maybe he/she is like the cop who will be saving my ass when the shit hits the fan.
You could look it up by yourself, but here's the gist of it: the flight attendant's top priority is your safety, not your happiness or comfort. They are trained in emergency procedures and if at all possible they will be the ones who make sure you get out of a cabin full of smoke after a crash. To cite a recent example: http://jezebel.com/no-ones-talking-about-the-flight-attendan...
I used to fly a lot (family overseas, so accumulated a couple of million miles over the years). It never, ever, bothered me to turn off devices for 10-15 minutes. Quite the opposite. I always enjoyed the moment to pause my hyper-connected life and put my gadget addiction in perspective.
My most disgusting experience was with an a-hole sitting next row, impatiently speaking on the phone when we were landing. At the very last second the pilot noticed the runway wasn't clear -- there was a parked vehicle in the middle, and had to do a subtle maneuver and get the plane back on air. We had some very tense 30 seconds.
Of course the phone call had nothing to do with the error by the air traffic control, but any sort of electromagnetic interference at that precise moment could have killed us all.
People frequently ask FAA why we should turn devices off. I still think the correct question is why not?
Separate from that, even as a frequent flyer, I'd rather people not have their attention stuck in their iDevice during takeoff and landing. Those are the times when a problem on the aircraft is most likely to materialize, and I'd rather not lose my ass in an accident because your attention was on Angry Birds. Further, in those minutes at the beginning of a flight if you are fooling around with your phone/kindle/etc and blocking the isle, you delay expedient loading and unloading of the aircraft. I've had colleagues busy on their [device] say things like "but, but I was just wrapping up a call, why was the flight attendant so rude!" No asshole, you were blocking the plane from loading / unloading. Think of others for a whopping ten minutes and put down the device so we can all safely load / unload and get on/off the ground.