Calls and texts to be allowed on new Air New Zealand flights

[Flying Fox]

I think part of the difference to using an in-seat phone vs mobile is the mind set. It takes a concious decision to use an inseat phone, however, leaving a mobile phone on and/or simply answering an in-bound call is almost a reflex action these days.

Also, those on corporate accounts are less likely to be price sensitive on thier accounts. Even if you have a corporate credit card, you still have to explain a $25.00 charge from Connexion or whoever. Its much easier to bury the charge in a mobile phone bill.

In short, its much easier to make a personal mobile call then an in-seat call when you consider the mind-set.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Frankly, I don't know why everyone is so upset about this. The call costs will be similar to seatphones and how many of you have seen anyone actually use those? I never have.

In order to use the service, the pax will have to have international roaming enabled on their phone (probably less than 10% of all mobile phones across Au/NZ). Just because it is available does not mean everyone will use it.

I have used (sent and received) the SMS capability of seatphones before and that was very useful albeit relatively expensive (I think it was $1.90 per message in and out).

My experience has been that subscribers are reluctant to pay those sort of rates when travelling internationally.

My understand is there will essentially be a base station onboard and you connect to it through your roaming agreement with your home operator. It sure won't be standard text/call/data rates and that will put most people off it... however.. my mobile plan includes $50 of intl roaming credit and $20 of intl data (50mb). Since most business people I know are with Telstra - this makes it attractive (and free).

Most other business plans worldwide also include free intl data/calls/text as well.

My business is internet/mobile/sms based and as much as it would help my bottom line by having services like this - I really hope it does not happen. People are annoying enough on planes.

 

[UP4014]

We can only hope the cost of installation and operation exceeds the income from the use of it.

Pity it isn't $10 per minute international and $5 per minute domestic like the original airphones in the US were. Really made you think about if you needed to make that call, but I did see plenty doing it.

Matt