YAKKETY-YAK IN THE SKY

Flying isn’t the fun it used to be. There’s all this new security, seats are cramped and watch out if the passenger ahead of you leans back. And you can forget about eating unless you have a taste for crackers with peanut butter or tiny pretzels.

Still, there’s the wonderful peace and quiet in the air, a time for reading, contemplation, and maybe quietly typing away on a laptop, a chance to escape the continual racket of modern-day living.

But all that may soon come to an end. Airlines are gearing up to permit cell phone use during flights, and government regulators are considering giving an OK. Suppliers of special equipment that may let airlines charge for the calls are claiming that they are responding to public demand, and the airlines seem to believe it.

It’s a false claim. The International Airline Passengers Association has just finished a survey of its members and was astounded when all but 9 percent of 1,500 responders opposed the idea and said cell phones in flight would be an annoyance rather than a convenience. The organization plans to present its findings at a meeting late this month of the International Air Transport Association in Geneva. Comments received by the Federal Communications Commission and a Wall Street Journal poll also showed overwhelming public opposition.

Here’s the present situation: The FCC will auction licenses on May 10 for in-flight cell phone use through special antennas intended to protect against navigation interference. The matter then goes to the Federal Aviation Administration, which still forbids in-flight use of cell phones but will relent if air lines can prove that they won’t interfere with a plane’s instruments.

Neither agency seems much concerned about the public opposition or warnings by flight attendants that cell-phone babble on crowded planes would add to their stress. The FCC boasts about its efforts to “increase communication options available to the traveling public … and to public safety personnel.” And an FAA spokeswoman points out that her agency considers only safety, not passenger preferences.

Quiet e-mail and text messaging ought to be enough to satisfy any desire for constant communication, but the government seems determined to plunge ahead with in-flight cell-phone use. So, if you want to head off the threat of louder and louder blah blah as passengers shout to overcome the plane’s engine noise and the competing voices of other cell phone yackers, your only recourse seems to be to pressure your favorite air line.

The government agencies won’t help, but the airlines want and need your business.