American Obtains FAA Approval to Allow Extended Use of Handheld Portable Electronic Devices

[FWAAA]

You missed the point. Takeoff and landing need 100% attention from everyone.

Well, good luck with that!    
 
Flight attendants have no mechanism to demand 100% attention from everyone as it is, and today's change in the rules won't give them any means of demanding 100% attention.
 
Sure, some FAs are personally offended and raise a stink when someone reads their book, newspaper or magazine during the safety briefing, but most realize that there's nothing in the FARs that compels the passengers to pay attention to the safety briefing.   Taking off and landing?   Sure, that's when most incidents occur, but reading a kindle instead of a heavy paper book isn't going to make a whit of difference.   

 

[Hatu]

As I stated, JMHO.
I meant no offense, but thought I would share my 38 years in Avionics/Electronics.
Keep your head in the sand, might be useful someday.
B) xUT

Not sure why you would say keep your head in the sand when all that was mentioned is that the things you are scared about could happen even with the PED rules currently existing (pre 5pm today).
Bad people will find ways to do bad things, where we draw the line trying to prevent them is the question.
With your paranoia, I guess we should just tell all pax to sit down, shut up and do not move during the entire flight. Want to make it easier to deter bad people: no more carrying anything on and everyone must travel naked!

 

[eolesen]

It's one less thing that FA's will need to enforce, which I'd think they'd be grateful for.

Only a select few like to nag people to turn something off, knowing full well that:

1) half of the devices on the airplane are still powered on regardless of anything the crew said
2) the crew's own devices are probably all powered on and likely not in airplane mode...
3) the cockpit is using an off-the-shelf iPad, which is also powered on...

I've lost count of how many times I've had a crew member force me to turn off a digital camera or a GPS receiver...
Glad that's a non-issue now, too. Now I can have my moving map and not worry about losing the signal while the device was stashed out of sight.

 

[kirkpatrick]

 
 

 

 

[kirkpatrick]

It's one less thing that FA's will need to enforce, which I'd think they'd be grateful for.

I, for one, am grateful.  As much as we'd like our passengers to give safety the same attention we do, it won't happen.  That's why we're there - to wake them up when something does happen.  When you think about it, it's really a tribute to our safety efforts that the passengers are so complacent.  They trust the airplane and crew almost completely.
 
But when something does happen (and in my forty-one years as an FA I've had a few) I know where they'll look.  Right at us, the FAs, who very probably will know just what to do.
 
MK