Monday, December 17, 2007

The Big iPhone Surprise

The new iPhone is totally way cool. I've had the opportunity to play with one; I've been driving and had my co-pilot (for lack of a better term) give me directions from said Mac product. I think that was after we were watching (I was listening) various videos on YouTube.

And then the infamous commercial came out.

You know which one, its the United pilot - IN HIS SWEATER! oh how I love the sweater! - trying to go from EWR to ORD and he uses his iPhone to tell ATC that the weather had cleared. The following is a story I found online, as told by a first officer. We (as in people in the industry) totally saw this coming.

"We push back, get advised of a ground stop in MEM due to storms in the area. Go to the penalty box and wait. My Captain does the lecture over the PA... not one minute later, we get dinged from the f/a: "Some guy with an iPhone says the weather is good, and wants to know what the real reason is for the delay. Is something wrong with the plane?" I want to tell this clown what he can do with his IdiotPhone - but the Captain does it even better. He gets on the PA and makes the following announcement: "If the passenger with the iPhone would be kind enough to use it to check the weather at our alternate, calculate our fuel burn due to being rerouted around the storms, call the dispatcher to arrange our release, and then make a phone call to the nearest Air Traffic Control center to arrange our timely departure amongst the other aircraft carrying passengers with iPhones, then we will be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the Flight Attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multi-million dollar aircraft and its passengers to safely leave." Needless to say, the passenger was pretty embarrassed. The f/a later told us the rest of the plane was outright laughing at this dude. What a clown."




*a big thanks to JNH, from whom I stole this story*

1 comment:

Thomas Fitts said...

Yeah, this post is old, but it's also the most amazing story ever told.