OnAir to launch in flight mobile service with Ryanair in 2007

So OnAir and Ryanair are probably to be the first to launch in-flight mobile service.  I thought BMI and TAP Air Portugal were going to get there before anyone else.  I think they’re still testing — as far as I know.

Check out Google News for OnAir to read the various sites covering the news.

I reckon this is good.  I’m all for innovation most of the time.  I’d love to continue to use my Blackberry while flying.  That would be really quite useful for me.  It’s hardly a necessity though.  However I don’t particularly want to be phoning anyone — or receiving calls in the air myself.    I just… I don’t know, it doesn’t quite work for me when you’re sat packed into a steel tube like sardines.   I don’t want other people to be forced to overhear me.  I quite like the peace of flying.  But the moment it becomes like a sodding commuter train… oh dear. 

I’M ON THE PLANE. YEAH. AMAZING ISN’T IT. YEAH. I’M ON THE PLANE. NO, RIGHT NOW! REALLY!  YEAH. I DUNNO, PROBABLY PASSING YOUR BIT NOW ACTUALLY. YEAH FROM THE PLANE. COOL.

No, I couldn’t take that.  Not for extended periods.  However I have some brilliant and stupidly expensive Shure earphones that block out absolutely everything, whether you’re listening to music or not.  Let’s face it, if they allow screaming babies on the plane, adding a few folk blething on mobile phones isn’t going to make much of a difference. 

Russell, as always, puts it slightly more eloquently:

The trouble with this idea though, is it might be a good
idea to allow me to make calls in-flight if I want to…..but that other
people can too. So now you have to worry about not sitting next to the
huge sweaty bloke, but anyone who starts a conversation with the words
‘Hello..can you hear me? I’m on the plane.”

I wonder what the policies will be in first class?  I can see quite a few CEOs and rockstars getting a little bit put out by folk yapping away next to them for the whole flight. 

This being said — it’s expensive.  Or, I’m sure it will be expensive.  I wonder if you can use your Vodafone Passport on it?   Apparently it’s going to mirror the rates set by mobile operators — so if you pay three quid a minute to talk to someone in America normally, you’ll pay three quid a minute on the plane.  Something like that.   Who knows.  I couldn’t find many more specific details other than what was in the press.

Let’s wait and see.