FORT WORTH, TX — Nobody’s done anything wrong yet, but American Airlines is already coming under storm for allowing unfiltered Wi-Fi access during long flights. Due to “a lot of complaints” from passengers and attendants – none of whom have actually seen anyone do anything that bothered them – the Association of Professional Flight Attendants has approached American Airline’s management, asking it to reconsider its decision to allow passengers to visit whatever websites they wish.
Naturally, fears concern the possibility of passengers visiting adult websites or other sides, vaguely described as “inappropriate.”
Currently being tested on some flights between New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as between New York and Miami, American offers cross-country flights a choice of $9.95 or $12.95 flight-time access, depending on the route in question. The airline plans to test the service for three-to-six months and then study feedback and usage, according to Bloomberg News.
Filtering of content has been an ongoing subject both for in-air and in-airport internet access, with the Denver International Airport’s free Wi-Fi service taking heat for blocking access to sites its officials determined to be offensive. While restricting access when using a free service is easy for most people to accept, the idea of paying good money for a service that may deny access to a favorite website is a more difficult sell in spite of the close quarters fliers find themselves in during travel.
Pundits have pointed out that there are no restrictions on the nature of print literature brought onboard – or what kind of DVD or other video imagery travelers may watch on their laptops or other portable players, so bans on online content may be unfair, feel-good measures that will have little influence on the reality of air flight.
American Airlines’ representative admits that the problem of inappropriate seatmate viewing material is nearly non-existent and that when there have been problems crews “have always managed this issue with great success.”
