Remember how fun it was to watch that Oprah’s favorite things and steam with jealousy as she announced things like, “And YOU get an iPhone 6 Plus! And YOUUUU get an iPhone 6 Plus!” while doling out expensive presents to her audience? Now just imagine her saying that 23,000 times to a crowd of United Airlines flight attendants.

The airline announced today that its 23,000 mainline flight attendants will soon be equipped with the over-sized not-really-a-phone-not-yet-a-tablet devices so they can streamline credit card transactions onboard with passengers. They’ll also be able to access their company email, united.com and the company’s intranet.

Eventually, the phones will also hold digital copies of their safety manuals, replacing the hard copies kept on planes now, as well as allow attendants to provide real-time reporting and status on aircraft cabin issues and repairs. Which means maybe every time you ask when a plane will be able to take off finally, they won’t just say, “10 minutes.”

Without saying anything about what they might be, United adds in the press release that it “plans to develop a number of customer-focused tools for the device.”

Perhaps they can be handed to crying babies to make them cease that damnable racket?

“We are thrilled to make this investment in our flight attendants,” said Sam Risoli, United’s senior vice president of inflight services. “iPhone 6 Plus will enable them to deliver an even higher level of flyer-friendly service and will offer our flight attendants simple, one-touch access to valuable work information, enabling them to better serve our customers.”

United pilots are already used to the Apple routine, having received iPads in cockpits in 2011, with an upgrade to the iPad Air 2 recently.

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