Emirates looks set to become the first airline to offer in-flight mobile phone calls for passengers from early next year. Just a couple of months after Ryanair announced a similar service starting in July 2007, the Dubai-based carrier says it will team up with technology provider Aeromobile to enable mobile phone calls from January 2007 (subject to telecoms and regulatory approval).
Says Patrick Brannelly, vice president, passenger communications and visual services for Emirates:
"The exact starting date of the new service depends on a number of things – formal air-worthiness approvals from TAA and IATA, telecoms regulatory approval, and us being good to go in terms of the briefing of crew and staff from an operational level. The rollout across the fleet should be completed within a couple of years, starting with the 777s and then the Airbus 330s and 340s. With the new aircraft that we are taking in the next few years we would hope to get these line-fitted."
Brannelly says that the airline is confident demand is there for the service, with many passengers already using the existing in-seat satellite phones.
"People do find the need to keep in touch, especially on long flights. We checked the records of flights to New York, and found that one flight alone had 68 calls."
Of course there are concerns that allowing mobile phone use in-flight will lead to disturbance for other passengers (see Plane Speaking, June 2006), but Brannelly is confident that this will be less of a problem than some anticipate.
"Many people now put their mobile phones on silent or have a courteous ringtone – it is much better than it was a few years ago. When our system activates, every phone that is turned on in-flight will get a welcome message requesting the user to turn their phone to silent. The system also allows us to manage the calls and switch incoming or outgoing calls off if necessary, but then of course people could simply pick up the seat back phones anyway."
"When we look at call traffic today it is kind of self-regulating – if you leave New York at midnight for Dubai, most people in New York will be asleep and it will be early morning in Dubai, so there's not really anyone for them to call anyway. And of course we have TVs on every seat and a huge amount of entertainment available, so many passengers sit there with their headphones on, so they may not even be aware someone is making a call."
Brannelly accepts that usage of the seat back phones on board will inevitably decline as frequent mobile phone users opt to simply use their own mobile (with access to address books and text messaging), although those passengers with pay-as-you-go phones or without roaming privileges will still be able to make seat back calls.
At present only five or six phones calls can be made at any one time for each aircraft, although this does not include text messaging, and Brannelly says that it is rare for more than two or three calls to be made concurrently in flight.
Emirates, which is investing $27 million in the service, also plans to offer GPRS access from next summer as soon as the technology allows, meaning passengers will be able to check their emails on PDAs and surf the internet. Pricing will be in line with international roaming rates, with passengers billed as normal by their network providers, and Brannelly believes that call prices will come down over time.
"Telecommunications is a deflationary business – prices are continually coming down. We don't look at this as a profit centre, it is a service we are providing for our customers."
Visit emirates.com for more information.
Report by Mark Caswell
