Some of you might have already heard about this, but I am glad airlines are finally beginning to overcome this use. It was about time really. In this day and age, our mobile phones are becoming ever more integral parts of our daily lives, and having to put up with losing its connectivity features, or worse having it turned off, for several hours during flights is annoying!

BA has announced that it will gradually allow passengers to use their mobile phones on board its airplanes. As one would expect, however, it is the Business Class users that will benefit first, and I imagine that they will pay for this convenience, but I hope it won't be too long before economy class passengers, and also other airlines follow. BA is not the first airline to hop on board (pun intended) the scheme, but it is certainly good news when it comes from such a big name in the aviation industry.

From the article:

Passengers crossing the pond on British Airways can use the airline’s new service from City Airport to New York to send text messages and access the internet from the middle of the Atlantic.

Although the service won’tlaunch later in the year, the new service,is business class only and will stop off in Ireland on the way to the US. According to the announcement, “stressed executives will be able to connect to a GSM picocell on the aircraft for data access and text messaging.”

The connectivity is provided by OnAir, and in turn by satellite company Inmarsat courtesy of a small dish mounted on the top of the aircraft and a connection to the Inmarsat-4 satellite. That should provide around half a MB of connectivity, along with the latency inevitably associated with geostationary satellite communications.

British Airlines isn’t saying how much flights are going to cost, or if the data connectivity will be bundled, but with no economy seats to bulk out the flight it’s not going to be inexpensive.

The current status is as follows (credit to Wikipedia):

No U.S. airlines have approved the use of mobile phones while in flight (due to FAA regulation in the States)

AeroMobile and OnAir
allow the use of personal electronics and devices aboard flights. The
services are most prevalent in Europe and are licensed to specific
airlines for use.

On 20 March 2008, Emirates Airline flights began allowing voice calls in-flight on some commercial airline flights.

Malaysia Airlines flights are installed with AeroMobile systems to enable in flight voice calls and text messages.