Heathrow Airport Sees First Mobile Use On A Commercial Flight

Thursday 14th August 2008

The first flight to be either departing or arriving in the UK to make use of inflight mobile telephone technology has taken place.

The flight was operated by Emirates and flew from Dubai to London on the 7th of August. The system that was used for the phonecalls was named AeroMobile and reports indicate that 30 calls were made during the flight. The use of mobile telephones in UK airspace is still officially banned however the tentative trial steps by Emirates will only initially see the system available on 10% of flights and when the aircraft are operating at 23,000 feet or higher.

The importance of keeping mobile telephone use quiet and non-intrusive is recognised by the airline as it requests that all passengers keep their telephones on silent at all times on flights, and crew will have the option to turn the system off at any point and make it a text-only facility.

According to an Emirates spokesperson the noise in the aircraft cabin coupled with the good quality of the telephone lines means that passengers can not to be heard speaking on telephones and do not have to shout as the line quality is very clear. The AeroMobile system is set to be introduced on other airlines such as Turkish Airlines, Qantas and Air France which utilises a weak telephone signal that does not affect any instrumentation on the aircraft.