Search icon

News

18th May 2025

Pilot explains whether you need to use airplane mode while flying

Sean Crosbie

Finally, some answers…

As summer begins, many people will be jetting off on holidays for a piece of the sun, however, a pilot is making sure that people remember some essential things while on a plane.

Mainly, the importance of switching your electronics to airplane mode.

In a video on TikTok, a pilot who goes by the username PerchPoint has reminded flyers of the importance of switching to airplane mode.

He said: “The airplane mode button on your phone is not a conspiracy.

@perchpoint The more ya know, yanno? #fyp #aviation ♬ original sound – PerchPoint

“So if you forget to put your phone on airplane mode, no, it’s not the end of the world. The plane will not fall out of the sky, and it won’t even mess with the systems onboard. However, it does have the potential to mess with the headsets.”

The pilot explained that no matter how many passengers are on board a plane, if a phone tries to connect to a radio tower, the radio waves can interfere with the radio waves of the pilots’ headsets.

He explained that it creates a buzzing noise in the headset, which makes communication difficult.

He said: “It kind of sounds like there’s a mosquito in my ear. Like I said, it’s not [the] end of the world, but it’s definitely pretty annoying when you’re trying to copy down instructions, and it sounds like there’s just, like, a wasp or something flying around you.”