A major U.S. airline is going further than ever toward muting passengers who engage in the irritating, bordering-on-sociopathic practice of watching videos or listening to music at full volume without headphones.
Eagle-eyed observers noticed that United Airlines updated its contract of carriage—the legally binding set of terms and conditions customers agree to when they buy a plane ticket—to require passengers to "use headphones while listening to audio or video content."
Flyers who fail to comply are subject to getting removed from the aircraft or being banned from the carrier on a "permanent or temporary basis."
The headphones requirement appears under Rule 21, which covers "Refusal to Transport."
Appropriately, United made the change quietly.
In an email to Frommer's, a United spokesperson told us that the change to the airline's contract of carriage was made Feb. 27.
The spokesperson pointed out that United has "always encouraged customers to use headphones when listening to audio content—and our Wi-Fi rules already remind customers to use headphones."
As the airline works to expand high-speed Starlink Wi-Fi on United's fleet, according to the spokesperson, "it seemed like a good time" to make the headphones expectation "clearer by adding it to the contract of carriage."
As People magazine points out, United is the "first major carrier in the U.S. to officially make a legally binding rule regarding headphone use on airplanes."
On United flights, headphoneless movie watchers are now on par with passengers who break other rules subject to the carrier's Refusal to Transport clause, such as the barefoot, the disorderly, the abusive, and the wasted.
All of them can be booted from a flight. Many of their fellow passengers might prefer that to happen by parachute.
As you have possibly noticed when traveling via other airlines, most of them do advise passengers to put on headphones when using noisemaking electronics.
"For the comfort of everyone around you," as the website of Delta Air Lines puts it, for example, "please use earbuds or headphones with any personal electronic device during your flight."
However, headphones are not mentioned as a must in Delta's contract of carriage.
That's where United differs, setting an industry first in making it an officially bootable offense for someone to force a cabinful of strangers to listen to KPop Demon Hunters all the way to Phoenix.
To which many flyers will want to say, Hear, hear!
Or, as the case may be: Not hear, Not hear!