Mile high club welcomes email and web surfing!
The growing trend to bring online connectivity to passengers on airlines, led by European airlines as usual since US airlines have delayed plans to use Connexion's services in the face of economic woes, according to this Wall Street Jouranl story (subscription required):
After years of ordering passengers to go offline upon takeoff, a number of airlines are set to make it possible to e-mail or even surf the Internet while mile-high. Early next year, Lufthansa will become the first airline to offer high-speed Internet access to passengers. British Airways will follow suit soon after. Both carriers will be using Connexion, a major new Boeing initiative. It should also help the beleaguered airlines boost revenues, since they typically get a cut from such services.
Meanwhile, the old GTE Airfones that now often sit ignored in the seat backs on airlines such as United and Delta are getting substantial upgrades. Last month, Verizon, which now owns GTE, started rolling out JetConnect [flat fee of $5.95] on carriers including Continental Airlines. The service allows passengers to plug their laptops into the Airfones and play games or send instant messages. Airfone plans to eventually add high-speed e-mail to the mix.
...Cellphone use aloft isn't uncommon either. Last Friday, in fact, an afternoon flight on Southwest Airlines from Houston to Dallas was forced to abort its landing twice and return to Houston when the navigation equipment stopped functioning properly. On a hunch, the pilot asked the flight attendants to see if anyone had been using cellphones -- and found two.
...There's been little research to back up the airlines' precautionary safety measures. A government study at the University of Oklahoma (conducted by a group that's partly funded by the wireless industry) looked into whether cellphones can interfere with some plane systems, and concluded they don't. However, separate research by U.K. regulators tested two parked planes and found that cellphones might cause interference.
John Sheehan chaired a 1996 study that examined gadgets such as laptops and game players on planes -- but not cellphones or e-mail devices. While his study found little likelihood that the devices will harm a plane, he has no doubt that it could happen. Should airlines allow people to use BlackBerries in the air? "Absolutely not," he says.