Where are you on Ryanair’s latest move, guy?

100% online check-in with a 10 Pound fee for printing the boarding pass?

I’ll simply say they’ll never see my business and leave it at that.

I’ve got a shouter two doors away from my office. When he’s not outside smoking he’s on his blue-tooth with the door open almost eight hours a day conference calling. And he’s temperamental. And he’s big.

I can see the speaking volume being raised just to be heard over the ambient aircraft noise and the random onboard announcement. Like so many animated people with naturally loud voices it will only get louder when they get even more irrascible during a marathon phone call.

Joy.

In my last post I agreed with Neil S and I also agree with you. Riding on an plane is not the same as standing in Times Square yet it could easily turn in to that kind of environment with every self-absorbed rainmaker closing deals and every worried road warrior checking in at home to make sure the kids they’re sacrificing time away from are at least not in jail.

From $1500 1st generation DVD players to $99 or less you are correct. Technology will eventually make cell time on an airplane to be no more than whatever plan most people have today.

I quote Michael Crichton: “Just because you can do a thing doesn’t always mean that you should.”

Leave the cell phones off, just as you would in a theater, and remember the (Optimistic) joy that air travel once brought in taking you away from the troubles of the world for at least the duration of the flight.

Or maybe the airlines should come up with a quiet zone where no cells are allowed.

1.) Cost. BS. Maybe for some of the people posting on this forum it’s a no-go. What about people who always fly in paid J or F, or who work in industries that aren’t cost sensitive for things like mobile phones, where it’s required as a part of business to talk on the phone in 30-40 countries a year and use unlimited data wherever you go? And compare the cost of an F ticket, or something like R class on SQ…these are not people who are going to give a huge hoot about an extra $20, $50, or $100 on their phone bill. Even J class to JFK from Asia runs over $10USD sometimes. My point is, cost probably won’t make a difference for a number of passengers. My own mobile bill can run into the thousands every month, and I guarantee if I’m on Emirates with this service I probably will end up talking…and using it. It’s not that I want to, but if your colleagues or clients even know it’s available then you de facto have no choice. While everyone strives to keep costs down, if you can get business that will generate hundreds of thousands or millions in revenues an extra few hundred bucks is not a deterrent. And a lot of the people flying in J and F (and Y, for that matter) are doing exactly that.

2.) 5 call limit, one word: Technology. Technology improves over time. The limit will increase.

3.) Nobody has done more than 3 calls at once: Novelty. Once it gets more widespread – and more importantly, once people on the ground know the people in the air have access – this will go up.

Yesterday I flew back on a long-haul flight from the US to Asia, I was in F. I slept 10 hours, landed in the morning and then worked a 16 hour day. It was great because I had no jetlag. I can imagine now if even one or two of the eight other passengers in the nose of the 747 were jabbering away on their phone while I was trying to sleep…it would not have been well-received. Yet it would’ve been very feasible – we took off at 1am SF time, which was 4pm HK/China time. So there was about a 8 hour window after we took-off when things were still going on at our destination, business was being conducted, and we all very-well could’ve been on the phone.

So while I can agree that US domestic flights, intra-Europe flights, Gulf flights etc….an hour here, a few hours there, maybe even 4-5 hours…should probably have this service, for long-hauls, when often everyone has different sleeping schedules anyway, I think it’s a terrible idea.

The trigger is that with AirPhones, very few inbound calls to the plane were made. With the cell phone? It’s no longer “He’s on the plane” for those people who otherwise always keep their phones on.

Buy stock in noise-cancelling headphone retailers.

On a Southwest flight from OAK to LAS, you’d have way more than 3 people wanting to use their phones at a time.

And a slim chance is still a chance. I don’t want to be in business class on a long flight, listening to anyone on the phone.