Jean Kerr, author, playwright
The flight of JetBlue with the malfunctioning landing gear last week brings up a new question for travelers: should the televisions remain on during a crisis or should they be turned off? Jetblue has opted to keep its TVs on for full disclosure but Frontier Airlines, WestJet Airlines, Song airlines have decided that in emergency situations the boob tube is immediately turned off.According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, among the reasons for during the TVs off include the possibly of lawyers seeking additional pain and suffering claims if passengers watch themselves explode into a fireball.
No longer do you have to rely on the captain or the crew to inform you of a pending tragedy, just wait for the power to flicker on the television sets and assume the crash position, because the end could be just minutes away.
5 comments:
We certainly don't get live news during flights in Canada. Nor live TV shows of any description.
They do provide a news broadcast, but it's literally yesterday's news, carefully sanitized to make sure there's nothing in there to alarm the passengers.
It seems perfectly reasonable to me. If there was a terrorist hijacking of a flight somewhere else, I'd take that information in stride. But maybe the guy next to me would get all panicky, and I'd be stuck dealing with his emotional crisis.
Q
I suppose ignorance is bliss in certain situations, but I think I would vote for full disclosure.
No live TV on airplanes! That's IT.. I don't care if it's on or off, either way, I'd freak if it suddenly went off. Gimme 5 reruns of Catwoman above that even.. eeesh.. And I've lived through 5 reruns of in-flight Catwoman..
I LOVE the new Jet Blue ads! They tell it like it is while making us laugh at the same time. I also love that new Ask Jeeves commercial with the woman coming up the duck hunter and asking for a recipe for lasagne. Of course, I hope I don't seem totally crazy right now.:)
Janet, you're certainly not crazy. I have not seen either ad. But, unless they advertise during baseball games or on cable I probably won't see them.
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