BA flyers can now leave their phones on during takeoff and landing

Passengers can now use their mobiles during take-off and landing on British Airways flights.

British Airways has announced that it is relaxing the rules on the use of smartphones and tablets during take-off and landing, making the touch-and-go near-death experience of hanging around in a hollow, flying metal tube that bit more manageable.

Whilst the idea of being strapped into a seat next to some air-gulper blabbing away on their blower for the entire flight is abhorrent in the extreme, BA has proposed permitting both tablets and smartphones to be left switched on in flight-mode, letting passengers play games, listen to their music and watch videos, thus keeping them distracted from the pilot’s attempts to wrangle their winged conveyance into thin air or, alternately, put it back on the ground without putting it too deeply into the ground.

Due to become BA law from December 19th, the World’s Favourite Airline is the first in Europe to allow passengers to keep their electronics turned on, following a change in gadget guidelines by the Aviation Safety Agency last week.

“We know that our customers want to use their handheld electronic devices more, so this will be very welcome news for them,” said British Airways’ flight training manager Captain Ian Pringle. “The easing of restrictions will provide an average of 30 minutes’ additional personal screen time. With around 300 people on a long-haul flight that will mean a combined total of approximately 150 hours extra viewing, reading or working.”

British Airways staff are expecting their busiest day on Friday the 20th when they’ll be loading up their fleet of sky sledges and delivering some 115,000 passengers to their decoration-clad December destinations, so the decision couldn’t be better timed for both home-bound nervous fliers and the electronic entertainment-addicted alike.