With all the technological advancements made since the dawn of the mobile phone era, this one has been a long time coming. Finally British Airways, often seen as the pinnacle of air travel, have announced plans for in-flight mobile phone use for Business Class passengers traveling between London City airport and New York JFK airport in the states. Passengers traveling the twice-daily route, set to launch this Autumn, will be able to take advantage of text messaging, send and receive emails and access the internet. “We Believe the route and the new technology will offer an appealing package to business travellers” said a BA spokesperson.
Initially voice calls will still not be possible but pending a successful trial, could become a reality: “There are no plans for voice calls at the moment but we will listen to feedback from passengers. The customer is in charge”. Though undoubtedly a technological breakthrough, is this a positive move for frequent fliers? The benefits of internet access and staying in contact through out your journey is a
plus but do you really want to be stuck next to a text or Blackberry addict and have to put up with the incessant beeping of keypads and message alerts for 7 hours straight? And if voice calls are made available, do you want to be stuck next to someone nattering away about their next business venture for an entire flight? No, me either.
Now I, like the vast majority, don’t have the luxury of travelling by business class when jet setting, so for the foreseeable future this is something most of us won’t have to consider the implications but pending a successful run, it only seems natural that this will eventually be rolled out to all passengers. Only time will tell whether this will be the technological breakthrough people think or just another irritating factor of air travel. I’ll just have to stock up on earplugs for my next visit to NY.
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[Source: The UK Mobile Phone Blog]
