United Airlines has become the first airline to specifically ban the playing of music, videos and more with the sound on, requiring the use of headphones, and threatening violators with being banned from the air.
The new policy, written into the airline’s Contract of Carriage, adds “Passengers who fail to use headphones while listening to audio or video content” to the list of those subject to being removed from a flight and possibly barred from flying United in the future.
The airline told The Points Guy site that the move was tied to its expansion of free on-board Starlink Wi-Fi. “We’ve always encouraged customers to use headphones when listening to audio content – and our Wi-Fi rules already remind customers to use headphones,” a spokesperson said. “With the expansion of Starlink, it seemed like a good time to make that even clearer by adding it to the contract of carriage.”
