BMI and TAP to allow mobile phones on board.

HAMBURG – BMI and TAP will join a test program initiated by OnAir, where the use of mobile phones in flight will be made possible.

This was announced byOnAir yesterday (21st of september) at the World Airline Entertainment Association Conference in Hamburg. According to press agency AP the test will take three months. BMI and TAP will not be testing the system simultaneously.

The antennas of mobile phones can not make direct contact with ground based masts. Instead, a connection is made through a special system on board the plane. This has to make it possible to use the mobile phone without interferring cockpit equipment.

TAP will test the system in A321s, BMI will use A320s. According to OnAir a call will cost roughly 2 Euro (~1,40 pounds) per minute. Text messages will be roughly forty eurocent (~25p).

OnAir expects the system to be introduced in 2007.

Translated from Dutch:
http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/?id=10326

Comments anyone?

I for one do not think this is a good development. I hate sitting in a train or bus with half the passengers yakking on. Now planes too? Having said that, someone has to be really stupid to pay 2 euros per minute to use the phone!