(Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images)

Airline passengers soon will be able to use devices such as tablets and e-readers throughout flights, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Thursday.

The agency will be loosening , allowing the use of tablets, e-readers, DVD players and video game consoles during these critical phases of flight, according to NBC News. Connecting to the Internet remains prohibited when the plane is less than 10,000 feet in the air.

during the entire flight, under a Federal Communications Commission rule, according to USA Today.

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The timing of the changes will depend on individual airlines due to differences in equipment, but an FAA statement said it expects "many carriers will prove to the FAA that their planes allow passengers to safely use their devices in airplane mode, gate-to-gate, by the end of the year."

The FAA's presented to it by a 28-member advisory committee, representing airlines, manufacturers, electronics makers, pilots and flight attendants,in September, CNBC reported. The agency has come under increasing pressure in recent years from those who have argued the devices pose little threat and thatmost commercial airplanes can tolerate radio interference signals.

Before an airline switches to the relaxed guidelines, airlines will have to prove to the FAA that their . Airlines have, over the years, built newer planes with portable electronics in mind, hardening them against electromagnetic interference, according to CNN.

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Circa 1936: Air hostess Daphne Kearley of Golders Green tending to the crew of the new luxury air service from Croydon, England to Paris, operated by Air Dispatch. (Ward/Getty Images)