Should more airlines make it available?

Over the years, in-flight entertainment has become increasingly visual, with personal screens in the backs of seats becoming the norm for most passengers on long-haul flights. Still, for some travelers, audio is a better choice, and alongside music and podcasts, some airlines offer an even more interesting format.

In particular, passengers on certain aircraft of certain airlines used to be able to listen in live to their pilots’ air traffic control communications. United Airlines was perhaps the most famous user of this technology. Passengers simply had to select audio channel nine to hear what was going on. I was lucky enough to be able to do this on a United Airlines Boeing 747-400 flying from San Francisco to London Heathrow in 2013, and it provided a fascinating insight into life in the cockpit.

Nevertheless, such offerings are more or less non-existent nowadays. Whether this was discontinued due to safety concerns, passenger usage trends or some other reason entirely is unclear, but I personally believe that the world of in-flight entertainment would be worse without it. Therefore, if it is technologically, logistically and bureaucratically feasible, I would certainly be in favor of wider use of air traffic control as in-flight entertainment. What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!