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Make in-flight calls

Emirates has become the first airline to introduce inflight mobile phone services on a Boeing aircraft.

The airline recently installed the technology, which allows passengers to make calls and send SMS text messages via their mobile phones during flights, on a Boeing 777-300.

Patrick Brannelly, Vice President, Passenger Communications & Visual Services, said the inflight mobile phone technology will offer additional communications channels to Emirates’ passengers.

The Boeing 777-300 carrying the new system is operating on several Emirates routes, including services to Europe and Australia. Emirates first installed the technology, which was created by inflight mobile phone technology developer AeroMobile, on one of its Airbus A340-300 aircraft in March – enabling the world’s first authorised calls on a commercial flight.

Since then, the airline has installed the technology on 10 aircraft, including A340-300, A340-500, A330-200 and Boeing 777 planes. Emirates plans to introduce the inflight mobile phone systems to other aircraft, with the airline’s maintenance division taking less than two days to complete the work. The average length of calls is around 2.5 minutes, while the text messaging capability is also proving very popular among passengers.

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