Some claim that wifi and cell phone emissions bouncing around in the cabin are also cause for concern. I've no idea if it's true, but I can imagine that inside an aluminum tube 150 wifi cards trying to connect might have some biological effect.
What we're arguing about is the signal strength and duration (and to some extent, where on the person the radiation is administered; hands are pretty tolerant compared to brain or torso), and the conversion factor to biological effect (which varies by frequency).
With modern radios, you've also got duty cycle -- your cellphone isn't transmitting full-time.
I'm basically not afraid at all about "tower" signals as a member of the public. I wouldn't stand in a microwave point to point beam. I also wouldn't want a 5W HT radio next to my head (or groin) for high duty cycle use, but I'm ok with holding it in my hand with a hands-free kit.
The people who vote you down for saying some types of non-ionizing radiation can be bad are actually worse scientists than if you were to say all (non-ionizing or ionizing) radiation is a huge problem. We have positive evidence that some radiation is really bad, and some is sort of bad; we have a bunch of negative confirmations that low levels of many kinds of radiation aren't likely to be very bad, and certainly aren't super-bad, but the exact borderline isn't known, and varies, and a 0.01% increase in cancer with zero benefit is more of a concern to me than a 1% increase in cancer with massive benefit (e.g. a CT for trauma where you'd otherwise be likely to die).
(Incidentally, my fear of ~200 wifi devices transmitting in the milliwatts on 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz or on a flight is approximately zero -- especially since it's unclear how many would actually be using the service at any given time, and it's a pretty large volume.)
http://microwavenews.com/news-center/using-cell-phone-elevat...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_on_aircraft#Statu...
People use cellphones in elevators ALL the time, ALL around the world. Especially when continuing a conversation they had as they walked in the building, and for as long as the signal stays.
The parent poster mentions the same effect in the context of aeroplanes.
You'll only find it mentioned in fringe non-scientific sites.
Case in point, your source, microwavenews. This is for the kind of people who believe in chemtrails and such.
I mean, even if you don't know about the site, isn't it obvious from the BS way of writing that you're reading something designed to sell stuff to kooks? "According to some new calculations", "if you believe the research by", obscure "EMF" conferences in China (with dead webpages) and what have you.