Should video chat be banned from airplanes?

Image via Wikipedia

One of the best new features making flying more enjoyable (or bearable) is the growing availability of wireless Internet on airplanes. Since this is a relatively new development and only on a handful of carriers around the nation, it isn’t quite clear what passengers should be allowed to read, watch and do online (aside from the obvious NSFW stuff already).

A particular gray area is video chat. Very recently, writer John Battelle was on a United Airlines flight between New York and San Francisco, using the Internet of the friendly skies to talk to his family via iChat with the webcam turned on. Apparently, that’s a no-no, as it was considered having a camera on the flight. The flight attendant proceeded to show the rule book to Battelle , citing that “two-way” devices are prohibited while flying. It’s not illegal, but many airlines have chosen to block and ban programs like Skype.

As Battelle correctly points out, then why is Wi-Fi allowed in the sky in the first place? Does that mean that chat programs, even without a webcam, aren’t allowed? You can chat over Gmail and Facebook; are those banned too? And this should probably solve the whole argument about allowing in-flight cell phone calls.

Sure, there could be security issues, but anyone intending on doing harm to the plane could still communicate via email to someone on the ground so long as there is Wi-Fi. Video probably won’t make much of a difference. So should Wi-Fi be banned entirely then?

Maybe I would prefer that calls/online vocal chatting were prohibited – except for emergencies – just because people have the bad habit of talking too loud on cell phones and microphones, which is only echoed and made more annoying in a tiny tube with wings. But this guy was saying good night to his kids. How can you get mad at that?

So where do you stand on video chat on airplanes? Is it a security threat, plain annoying or the only way to survive a long-haul flight these days?