Last week, we covered a story in which a passenger was arrested for an altercation that arose between he and a flight attendant after said attendant asked him to turn off his iPod. Well, those pesky Apple products are at it again. This time the culprit is the ever-popular iPhone.

An ATA passenger switched the iPhone to “Airplane Mode,” basically disabling any cell phone, bluetooth, or WiFi aspects of the device. The passenger proceeded to watch Jennifer Love Hewitt try desperately to escape a hook-handed killer in I Know What You Did Last Summer. The flight attendant, either not accepting the whole “airplane mode” theory or disagreeing with the turn Western cinema has taken over the last decade, told the passenger to turn the iPhone off. From there, things got ugly, and according to Consumerist, eventually led the flight attendant to remark, “You have to do anything I say, I am going to have you arrested…” When the plane landed, the passenger was detained, but no charges were brought.

OK, so the flight attendant couldn’t tell the passenger which FAA rules were being broken, and the passenger couldn’t make the case to keep the movie on. I can see both sides of the thing. This new- fangled technology might throw some airline employees off. For my part, I think the problem goes beyond iPods and iPhones. In the days of overcrowded planes, overworked employees, and frustrated travelers, a simple issue like whether someone should get to watch a mediocre horror movie while onboard a plane warrants police action. Perhaps, everybody just needs to calm down a bit. I know the work of Jennifer Love Hewitt always does the trick for me.

Wow, things really went well for the airlines this summer. They reported record delays and cancellations, the government is toying with the idea of stepping up oversight, and they managed to screw up a million pieces of luggage in about 90 days.

That’s right, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), 1 million pieces of luggage were either lost, delayed, damaged, or stolen between May and July. Now, I’m no mathematician, but luckily the folks at Traveler are:

“…these statistics mean that almost 8 in every 1,000 passengers had problems with their luggage whenever they flew.”

Whether you break it down or just leave it at 1,000,000 bags delayed, damaged, or stolen, it sounds pretty bad. Hopefully, autumn will see a major turnaround for the air travel industry on all fronts. If not, at least there will be pretty leaves to look at.

On another flight I took this weekend, I noticed something new and odd: people were still yakking away on their cells, even as we taxied down the runway and took off. I was faintly shocked.

Then, even before we landed (still in the air!), I noticed even more passengers on their cells, calling people to say, Yeah, were about to land, Ill be home when I told you I would. You know, vital communications. So where were the flight attendants? Strapped into their little seats, oblivious to all this.

Now, we can joke about this and I think most of us know that cell phone usage isnt really going to crash a plane BUT what bothers me is, people disobeying the flight attendants. No, I’m not that much of a Pollyanna, but in a real emergency, I think we do have to be prepared to do what the crew tells us, otherwise all is chaos. I think.

So why did these bozos decide to get on their phones? Maybe its a mini-rebellion: getting on your cell is one thing you can control, in a world of delays/cancellations/crummy seats, etc., etc. Am I seeing conspiracies where none exist? Could be! I should point out that some of the folks on the phones had those fancy new Apple deals. I think they were just showing off.