Tue, Sep 14, 2004
At 35,000 Feet
Nearly half of all international business fliers would prefer to
travel on airlines that allow the use of mobile phones in flight.
That is the emphatic conclusion from a survey of 1,200
international business and leisure travelers at two of the
world’s busiest airports—London Heathrow and Gatwick.
The research was conducted for Telenor and ARINC.
The companies are marketing an inflight GSM mobile phone service
for passengers—ARINC-Telenor Mobile Connectivity. They plan
to demonstrate their system at the World Airline Entertainment
Association (WAEA) in Seattle (WA) Sept. 21-24.
"Our research shows a pent-up passenger demand for in-flight
mobile service," said ARINC Vice President Graham Lake. "Fully 83%
of business fliers now carry their mobile phones in flight, while
about half carry a laptop computer. The world today has more than
1.5 billion mobile phone subscribers, with almost 75% using GSM
technology."
Many planes could be readily equipped with the ARINC-Telenor
service because more than 1,900 already have the classic Inmarsat
hardware needed. ARINC and Telenor are offering airlines a
comprehensive, one-stop implementation package.
The technology allows passengers to use personal GSM mobile
phones in flight just as on the ground—and without any
enrollments, sign-ups, credit cards, or dialing of extra digits.
The system treats the world’s airspace just like calling
another country. Passengers are charged a reasonable fee, similar
to international roaming rates on the ground. Calls are
transparently billed to passengers’ mobile accounts by their
own cellular providers.
"Passengers can roam onto this system as easily as visiting a
new country. They can make calls, accept incoming calls, and send
or receive text messages," said Berit Svendsen, chief technical
officer for Telenor. "Close to a third of business passengers found
this concept very appealing, and as much as 28% of all passengers
were willing to pay as much as three to six dollars per minute for
inflight mobile service. More than half of all respondents would
send and receive text messages as well."
The research was conducted in June-July 2004 by IMDC (Inflight
Management Development Center), an independent UK-based company
that specializes in management support services for the in-flight
business sector.
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