>The reason we have people in airplane mode was there was a fear of detonating devices remotely with a cell phone after someone rigged a bomb to get this, a cell phone

Citation, please.

This is repeatedly quoted, but there's no official source, or... to be honest... any vaguely reasonable logic behind it. You think a terrorist is going to be at home building a bomb and getting really disappointed when United announces that they're going to ask you to use airplane mode or they'll threaten to have you arrested after the flight they intend to blow up lands? How TF does that make sense?