You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes

The article is crap, but it is correct in that you don't need to use airplane mode. I would, however, advise to still use it purely to preserve battery life of your device as otherwise it will very aggressively keep scanning for networks and drain it.
- The article is crap,
  It is Gizmodo after all
- Yep. I do wish there was a toggle for the cellular radio by itself (rather than just mobile data). It's annoying to have to go airplane mode then turn WiFi and BT back on.
  
  On Android you do have that toggle
  
  Weird. On iPhone it remembers if turned BT and WiFi on while Airplane mode is on and will only turn off the Cell antenna. Do that every time I travel.
- Meh - flights have USB ports now if your battery is low.
  
  But that’s just a waste of electricity then? And battery health?
  
  USB ports and outlets lol I haven't been concerned about preserving my phone's battery life while flying in a long time now lmao
- How old are your phones? I don't notice any "aggressive scanning" when I don't have airplane mode on. The other user is not able to switch WiFi on in airplane mode, my last two phones did that no problem and they go like 4-5 years back.
  
  Cell towers, without mountains/buildings blocking them, reach 10+ miles and airplanes don't fly that high... so you are within range of towers while flying unless you're over the ocean.
  However, connecting to a tower that far away requires running the radio at maximum transmission power which absolutely kills your battery. Also the towers reject your phone's attempt to connect because they are programmed to ignore distant connections when they know a dozen other towers are within a few miles of that tower. If you're flying over remote areas where towers will accept any connection you might occasionally get enough signal to call 911 but i likely won't be a usable data connection due to how far away you are.
  Wether it shows a connection or not, your phone is still reaching out trying to connect and doing handshakes with towers on the ground.

"You have a reminder set for 5pm today," my phone said.
"A reminder? What is it?" I asked.
"It's a notification to ensure you don't forget something, but that's not important right now," the phone replied.
Then I remembered I'd left it in Airplane! mode.
- 😆 It might be nice to have a phone that tells me "Remember, we're all counting on you. Good luck." Otoh it would probably keep calling me Shirley.
  
  You can absolutely do that with a text to speech app and the app Tasker on Android.
- "5pm today" can also get ambiguous if you're flying across time zones.
  
  If you keep in flying in the right direction, it could take more that 24 hours until you finally catch 5pm.

I think it's still worth doing so your phone isn't rapidly trying to connect and disconnect from nearby cell towers as you ascend and descend. Maybe there's already protections in place for this case but it makes sense that it could add a lot of unnecessary strain on certain cell towers.
- Not to mention the battery drain.
  
  It's been a long time since I've flown on a plane without at least a USB port to plug into, most have had full outlets to plug into lmao
- This is the primary reason I do it, although more for my battery life than the cell towers.
- I thought that's what the Pico cells are for - each plane has a mini phone tower in it so phones happily connect to that instead of looking for ground stations

Uneducated writers thinking using phone during flight is the same thing as using phone on the ground. It's not.
Phones won't interfere with sensors and stuff on airplane. That much is true. However pilots need to communicate with all kinds of airport staff over FM radio and there, since it's an analogue signal, phones can cause that familiar disruption. It won't destroy equipment, but you will annoy pilots and might prolong departure time. Same thing when landing, you are coming from no signal zone and all of the sudden 100 phones starts talking at the same time when pilot is receiving instructions from the airport.
This is why you can talk during flight, but not takeoff.
- I put my phone in airplane mode if for no other reason than if it's constantly trying to connect to a signal or Wi-Fi, it drains the battery way faster.
  
  Or that. Whatever the reason is, if one is being asked to disable phone, then disable it. There's no reason to be an smartass and cause issues.
- That disruption is from a 2G/GSM handset. Those networks were turned off a decade ago.
  
  Pilot here. Still on the A320 series it's obligatory to turn off the electrical devices for low visibility approaches (ILS Cat2/3) as aircraft's navigational systems are not protected (at least certified) against RF interference.
  Stupid article.
  
  3G has been turned off in a lot of places, but 2G is still very much used globally. It's still the last fallback for phones to maintain basic texting and calling functionality. In many places emergency services also use it for e.g. emergency information via text message.
  
  Can confirm. I own a pair of noise canceling earmuffs (meant for sport shooting; my dad was into guns). They're completely unshielded so I can pick up interference from all sorts of signals. It's fun to switch my phone between different networks to hear what 2G/3G/LTE/5G sounds like. I can even hear WiFi and find the dead spots in my house.
  Point I'm making is that GSM is still sticking around here as a backup so when I drop my phone to 2G it sounds exactly the same as it does in this video.
  
  GSM is still very much alive in many countries.
- Last time I flew, there was no signal at all while flying. not even GPS!
  
  There was GPS signal, it's just by design that chips are not allowed to lock at above certain speed to prevent military use. But even if there's no signal, mobile phone will try to find tower. If it doesn't find one it will try increasing transmission power.
  
  There's no way there was no GPS, maybe your phone was trying to base your location with antennas and not GPS
  
  Last time I flew, there was no signal at all while flying.
  There's a number of factors that lead to that.
  The cell base station antennas have a relatively narrow vertical beamwidth and are typically aimed a few degrees below horizontal. (Aircraft tend not to operate at that altitude)
  usable range of each cell base stations is typically <50 km.
  Cell base stations are optimized for communicating with mobiles moving less than 90km/h.
  Given all that, if you happen to get a signal, you'll be handing off between towers far too fast and too frequently for the network to reliably deal with.

I used to turn Airplane Mode on during my LSD trips many years ago, pretty useful.
- I haven't heard drifting referred to as limited slip differential trips before, but that's good that you aren't texting and drifting.

More importantly, you don't need to be on an airplane to use airplane mode.

Airplane mode is a blessing. If the OS is trustworthy (i.e. FOSS Android) then it actually works, it turns off that crappy unprivate cell connection and you have anonymous Wifi only.
It saves battery and you can use your phone without anyone being able to track you easily.
Btw Google hides the GPS quicksettings toggle for a reason, edit the shortcuts and add it.
- ... What? You think WiFi is anonymous?
  
  It can sometimes triangulate you better than the cell towers.
  
  If you randomize your Mac address (which is default on GrapheneOS and Fedora now) you are pretty anonymous to the wifi network.
  Of course websites see where you are, they always do that. Use Tor or a VPN.
  
  WiFi isn't as safe as they apparently think it is lol
  If the SSID you connect to is unique enough, there's a site that can literally pinpoint your location. If you have any other SSIDs around you, it's basically guaranteed. That's why there's a bunch of apps that log the SSIDs around you, to get your location without having to ask.
  That's not even considering the entire rest of WiFi that's not anonymous

Ive always forgotten to set this anyway. No planes taken down so far (but it will drain your battery)

Why don't they just call it "avoiding people" mode instead

All the comments about technical details and practical details...
Are we forgetting that when dealing with millions of people, plus bureaucracy, in a potential death risk, it's worth being slow and cautious about relaxing former safety rules.
That was my understanding, that once upon a time it was legitimately feared that mobile phones could caused accidents (and thought they had indeed caused one). So, besides the other issues people have highlighted in the comments, to walk back from the safety rule of turn-them-off is a slow process.
Commercial air travel is not known for going, "ah, it's probably fine, don't worry;" except in the case of emergency exit door bolts.
- Also, I'd like to add:
  You don't need to use airplane mode on airplanes
  ... Please do follow the rules, and do what the cabin crew ask you to do. Otherwise, even if you don't directly endanger the plane, you make it harder for them to do their jobs and keep everyone safe.

I feel like this has been common knowledge. Airplane mode is more about "we don't want some asshole talking to their client on the phone while we are trying to do the safety briefing and take off"

Then why flight attendant says "switch your devices to flight mode"? It was a week ago in domestic european flight.
- They usually only ask you to do so for take off and landing. Also based on experience from a European flight
- I was on a domestic flight in Europe two months ago and there was no such announcement. They were probably just being nice and saving you some battery.
  But there is absolutly no reason to turn it off because of any saftey concerns with the plane.

Last time i forgot and the phone connected to “aeromobile”. Would have cost me a packet if i had left roaming data on

In my country, 2G phones could interfere with radios with that da-dada-da-dada sound. I know people who have personally had that happen to them while trying to land airliners and it made listening to ATC more difficult.
I don’t think it’s an issue anymore though.
- That's because phones and airplanes were operating on the same frequency. They don't do that anymore... in part because there's a dozen phones on every flight that haven't been put in airplane mode.
  
  No they don't. GSM is all over the place with frequency, but it never goes down to 118-137 MHz which is where air traffic sits. It's just that mobile phones will increase transmission power to reach cell towers and that can produce that annoying disturbance. Phone won't mess up instruments, just annoy people trying to talk and get your ass safely from the ground.
- Definitely not an issue in the US anymore. T-Mobile is the last carrier to support 2G and they're shutting that down in April this year. I think most Android phones explicitly disable 2G now too because it's not secure.
  
  Mine has it disabled, but available if I want to enable it (with a security warning.)
  
  Mine had it disabled by default, but still available for emergency calls, and the option to enable it.

Thanks for rendering my little private rebellion worthless. It's all I had left.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-statements-5g
- That problem relates to landing an airplane with a 5G tower near the airport. Nothing to do with passenger phones.
  And honestly it's a faulty radio in the airplane. They shouldn't be disrupted by 5G towers at all... but Boeing doesn't want to pay for replacement parts and neither do the airlines.
  
  I didn't make any claims to the effect. In fact, I wanted to make it clear that even these worries over 5G towers aren't really relevant or a reason to keep such a claim alive. There is no need to take my word for it. The FAA has already covered it.

I never fly anyways!

I am not a very frequent flyer. In fact last time was over a year ago. even then, we were insteuctes to set lelectronics to flight mode only during take off and landing.

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I always have my phone on. No one can tell me to turn it off as it's my right

- I think it was just more protecting against the one in a billion chance of interference that could potentially take down a plane full of people. Why risk it if the alternative is something as basic as tapping a setting on your phone during takeoff and landing?
- You are one of those people who should be forced to do something very sensitive with high responsibility and have someone sit next to you and slap you randomly in the face while expecting you to do your job. That's essentially the same thing you are doing to pilots while they try to keep your ass safe and alive.
- Same, there's not even a battery saving aspect to it anymore now that planes have at least USB ports to charge from if not full blown outlets lol

How to use WiFi in plane if you put your phone in airplane mode? nonsense.
- My phone allows me to independently choose Wi-Fi and Bluetooth state separately from the cellular state.
  
  Almost every android phone. Not sure about iPhone though.
  
  When I turn on airplane mode it turns off everything but of course I can turn wifi on just after. But all the phones I have seen when you set in airplane mode it turns off cell wifi BT even nfc
- Airplane mode is no longer about shutting down all wireless communication. It's been for some time.
  Now it's shutting down the cellular connection only, wifi and bluetooth stay on.