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Transatlantic passengers on Aer Lingus flights who ignore repeated requests to turn off their phones or switch them to flight mode risk being hit with sky-high roaming charges even if they never look at their devices while on board the plane. One passenger said he had inadvertently left his phone on in an overhead compartment while flying to the US and was horrified to get a bill for almost US$300 from AT&T, his provider, weeks later. AT&T said the charges were racked up by “antennas installed on the plane that operate outside an unlimited international roaming plan”. The antennas can “automatically connect with phones that are not in flight mode. Aer Lingus confirmed that passengers who failed to switch their phones to flight mode could be hit with unexpectedly high bills but stressed it was not making any money as a result. <br/>

As Boeing was developing its latest version of the 737 airliner, it discovered the design was slightly more prone to a loss of control. So the company added a computer-driven safety feature -- one that is now a focus of the investigation into a fatal crash last month near Indonesia. If preliminary findings are borne out, the Oct 29 crash of the Lion Air 737 Max 8 may end up being one of a number of cases in which the cockpit automation that’s made flying safer also had the unintended consequence of confusing pilots and contributing to tragedy. “There’s no question that automation has been a tremendous boon to safety in commercial aviation,” said a former chief accident investigator for the FAA. “At the same time, there have been many accidents where automation was cited as a factor.” <br/>