Business Channel 2006-11-14&16

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No. . . . . . She hasn't, has she?

It's every passenger's nightmare.

Good grief, what, what did they say?

Trapped in a plane, and a fellow traveler’s on the phone, talking loudly.

Well, look, send an E-mail next week. . . . . . .

The nightmare is one stage closer to reality when Emirates' decision to start the service from next year.

New technology means mobile phones can be used without interfering¹ with the aircraft instruments. A small GSM base station is fitted to the plane. That sends the signal from your mobile phone to a satellite and then to the ground, keeping power levels onboard the plane very low.

It's that very low power level that does two things: one, it stops the phone from interfering with the avionics in the airplane, obviously very important, and also stops it connecting, by mistake, to a ground network that you are flying over because that could cause quite a lot of disruption on the, in the ground network.

Emirates says it's just responding to demand in offering the new service. Passengers are already making 6,000 calls a month on the plane's own phone network at a cost of 5 dollars a minute. Using their own mobiles will cut that cost to 3 dollars 50.

We've got, um, research, ourselves, in the airlines that we're talking to have got thier own research, and we're seeing, um, figures of in excess of 50%, up to 70, 80 percent of aircraft passengers showing that they're interested in communicating using their mobile phones, for voice and for text, when they fly.

The problem is other surveys say exactly the opposite. Skytrax shows 84% of frequent flyers are against mobile phones on planes. They don't want to use them and don't want other passengers to, either. It's a story I heard from these passengers on a long haul flight from Los Angeles to New Zealand.

It's annoying, you know, you don't want people on, on planes, they're having loud conversations when you're trying to relax.

It's sure to hope let them on hold. It's, err², just nice to have that time to concentrate, probably some of the best work I get done is on the plane.

Emirates is not the only carrier hoping passengers like these will change their mind.

Qantas, Ryanair, Air France and BMI are introducing similar services. In the end, it probably doesn't matter what passengers think. One estimate says 50% of all airlines will introduce mobile calling within 2 years.

That loudmouth oaf (Well, I bet brand doing account wasn't having any of that) is coming to a seat near you.

Richard Quest, CNN, London.


avionics (n.)
the electronic equipment used in aircraft and the science of developing it