Good grief: cellphones, double beds on planes?

Airlines have given us a lot to complain about, slashing just about everything to save money.

Meals are gone from most domestic flights. Pillows and blankets are being taken away. Coach seats are more squished than ever. And some airline staff, suffering from job and pay cuts, are not exactly cheerful.

Now it's time for long-suffering travelers to complain about what the airlines may give us next: cellphones and double beds.

That's truly over-exposure.

Cellphone chatter

Once it's airborne, a plane is one of the few places where we don't have to listen to strangers gabbing on cellphones about their love lives or business deals.

But if federal regulators approve cellphone use in flight — something the Federal Communications Commission is considering — you may be stuck for hours in a packed plane with blabbering seatmates.

It could drive passengers crazy. That's why some flight attendants' groups are urging that the cellphone ban be kept. They fear passengers will get into fights over cellphone use — and have yet another way to ignore airline-safety announcements.

A federal decision is months away. It depends on technical gurus making sure that cellphones and other wireless devices won't interfere with cell-phone networks on the ground and the plane's navigation and electronic equipment. (The technology used for the current seatback Verizon Airfones doesn't interfere.)

Even if the feds do approve cellphones for flights, it's unclear what airlines will do. But money talks, especially for financially ailing U.S. airlines that could rake in cellphone usage fees.

Lots of passengers, and cellphone users, want peace and quiet. A Gallup poll earlier this year found almost 70 percent of frequent or occasional fliers wanted the cellphone ban to stay. And in a University of Michigan poll last month, 60 percent of cellphone users said other people's public conversations are a major irritant.

Airlines should listen up. They could limit when cellphones can be used or allow only text-messaging. They could designate quiet zones on planes where phones are banned. Or they could create walled-off areas where cell-phone users could talk and not bug everyone else, like the crying rooms for parents and squealing toddlers in movie theaters.

Better yet, the airlines should just say no to cellphones. Let passengers talk — face-to-face.

Speaking of communicating ... one airline is encouraging passengers to get very, very close.

Virgin Atlantic, run by the cheeky British mogul Sir Richard Branson, has put double beds in its first-class cabins on some Boeing 747s on London-U.S. routes. And it will put double beds, cocktail bars, even workout rooms and casinos on its new Airbus A380s, super-sized planes that can carry 500 to almost 900 passengers, depending how airlines configure them.

Virgin (the coy name Branson chose for his airline ) is going for double beds — almost three dozen of them in business/first class cabins of each new plane, made from two adjacent seats that fold flat.

"We have a lot of honeymoon couples who fly on Virgin, and lot of couples who have been together for many years. There is no reason why they shouldn't cuddle up on board like they would at home," Branson told the London Times newspaper.

Actually, there's a reason why they shouldn't. It's called public decency.

Being stuck on a plane listening to endless cellphone chatter would be bad enough. Put couples in a double bed for hours, and one thing leads to another. Imagine the amorous sound effects. Imagine the views, since the double beds may not be fully screened off if you're walking down an aisle.

Quick. Turn off such live in-flight entertainment before it gets started.

Kristin Jackson: 206-464-2271 or kjackson@seattletimes.com