Like it or not, a new era has dawned. More than a
year later than anticipated, Emirates says that the world's first
authorized cellphone call was made by a passenger during an Airbus A340 flight between Dubai and Casablanca. Once the aircraft reached cruising altitude, passengers were permitted to make and receive both calls and text messages. Emirates plans to fit additional aircraft with the interference-blocking AeroMobile system later this year while adding BlackBerry and "other data services." To keep the annoyance factor to a minimum, the flight crew requests passengers to silence their ringers and will shut off the in-flight service when appropriate. For example, during long-haul, red-eye flights or breaking celebrity scandals on
TMZ... we hope.
[Thanks, Jonathan F and Andrew B.]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Xultar @ Mar 21st 2008 8:28AM
If all it takes is a cell phone call to bring a plane down we are all in big trouble.
Donald @ Mar 21st 2008 9:43AM
The first case of air rage caused by someone yapping constantly on their cell phone occurred on the same flight. Truly, a historic day.
T Dyer @ Mar 21st 2008 11:36AM
Big Deal!
Your Cell phone won't work once the plane gets to about 10,000 feet anyway, so you might as well turn the phone off anyway.
Prince @ Mar 21st 2008 1:52PM
O_o but i thought cell phones worked fine in planes on 9-11??? (i'm such a smart arse)
Scoot @ Mar 30th 2008 9:37PM
A few years ago (about 2003/2004) Qantas in Australia would allow mobile phone usage on flights that were part of their business commuter offering (cityflyer), your could use your mobile while the plane was at cruising altitude.