08S7B trailblazers

Singapore Airlines

Article from straits times

Lofty talk or invasion of the aural kind?
By Karamjit Kaur, Aviation Correspondent


SINGAPORE Airlines made aviation history when its first Airbus A-380 took to the skies last October.
Another first, at least for the airline: Passengers logged 600 minutes or 10 hours of calls using the phones fitted in the superjumbo. One reason: Journalists were filing their stories down to earth.
But the chances are that the ordinary passenger would not be rushing to make mid-air calls. SIA said only a few calls are made per flight. Nothing to shout about.
It's not just the cost - from US$5 (S$6.80) to US$11 per minute - that puts people off mid-air chit- chat. They also don't like having to swipe their credit cards in the machines, and airphones cannot receive calls or transmit text messages. They are nowhere as fuss-free as cellphones, banned because they interfere with the aircraft's electronics during flight - until March 20, that is.
That was when the very first authorised cellphone call from a commercial aircraft was made from an Emirates A340-300 Airbus flying from Dubai to Casablanca, Morocco. The Dubai-based carrier is spending US$27 million to fit its fleet of 115 aircraft with the technology supplied by AeroMobile - a joint venture between Swedish- based mobile communications company Telenor and Arinc, a transport communications provider.
The cellphones connect to a base station on board the aircraft, which in turn is connected to the plane's satellite system. Signals are then sent to a satellite dish on the ground. From there, they are routed through telephone networks to the phones being contacted.
With the base station on board, calls can directly target a satellite system, preventing cellphones from causing havoc to flight instruments or ground networks by sending out signals indiscriminately.
Charges are about US$3.50 per minute, and users are billed by their respective service providers.
An Emirates spokesman said half the passengers would switch on their phones during flights, although not all of them use the service. Passengers send and receive text messages more often than they chit-chat.
The system, activated only when the aircraft is at cruising altitude, is designed such that cabin crew can block voice calls at certain times.
Besides AeroMobile, OnAir - a partnership between Airbus and Arinc competitor Sita - has also developed technology to allow cellphones to be used in flight.
It is a technology that is in its nascent stages. The system cannot support more than six calls at any one time now because of satellite capacity, said an AeroMobile spokesman.
Text messaging is a different matter. The system can handle every passenger sending a text message at the same time.
Now that Emirates has adopted the technology, other carriers are waiting in line. Air France-KLM has launched trial in-flight phone services on some European routes. British Midland Airways, Portugal's TAP, Turkish Airlines and V Australia are also planning to offer similar services later this year.
Budget airline Ryanair intends to make money out of it by taking a cut from the charges levied by cellphone service providers. Australia's Qantas plans to allow the use of cellphones on main trunk domestic routes - but only for text messages. No voice calls will be allowed until the airline is convinced passengers want it - a prudent move indeed.
A recent poll by German carrier Lufthansa shows air travellers are against cellphone chats in flight.
In an industry as competitive as commercial aviation, airlines are apt to jump on the bandwagon when a new product or service appears. Whether it is a flat bed in business class, extra big personal entertainment screens or the latest in-flight entertainment systems featuring the best sound and picture quality, if one airline has it, the rest will want it too.
The US$27 million Emirates is spending on the technology is small change for big airlines - just enough to buy half a single-aisle plane.
While nobody can quarrel with being given added services which he can choose to use or reject, in this case, the passenger can't quite block out the myriad ringtones that are likely to permeate aircraft cabins. It would be like sitting on a bus and being unable to turn TVMobile to 'mute'.
Asked if SIA would follow suit, its spokesman said the airline was still evaluating the concept and technology, adding that research shows many passengers have different views on the matter.
But even if airlines are happy to let passengers chat away in the air, not all regulators may approve.
Australia and Dubai have given the go-ahead. The European Commission cleared the way last month for cellphones to be used in the skies above Europe - but not for international flights.
Making calls across international borders is a tricky affair because airlines may need to comply with the rules of the countries they fly over. Many countries in Asia, for example, do not authorise calls in their airspace.
In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission are evaluating the issue.
Some people are so dead set against people using cellphones on planes that the US Congress has introduced what is called The Hang Up Act. They argue that Americans do not want to be subject to people talking on their phones on an already over-packed plane. If approved, this Bill would make it illegal to talk on a cellphone when flying a US carrier.
Using a cellphone on a plane is an exciting new development for air travel. But with some serious regulatory and social hurdles to overcome, whether mid-air chit- chat will really take off is still up in the air.
karam@sph.com.sg

Analysis

For these passengers who are affluent enough to take such a luxurious flight, the high cost of mid-air cost should be no issues. What put them off are the technical constraints like not being able to receive calls and send sms. These constraints make the service an inferior but expensive one compare to the telecommunication services on the ground. So why not wait for a few more hours to make a call and save quite some money?

It is understandable that many airline companies rush to the service taking high risks of low return. This is a highly competitive industry as the air fare takes up a large portion of income for most people and high substitutability of the airlines makes branding difficult. Positive and large cross elasticity of demand is the force behind for the companies to strive to differentiate their services.

Companies like Emirates adopt the new technology to brand their service as high-end service and thus attract well-heeled customers who look for novelty and luxury. For these companies, they are even willing to make loss on introducing the service because it is only a strategy to edge on other airlines that aiming at high-end service and make customers feel that this airline is more prestigious than the others, especially when the installation cost is not high for a airline company. Thus the company can cut a higher share of the market.

However budget airlines like Ryanair intends to make money out of it by taking a cut from the charges levied by cellphone service providers. Therefore once the company finds that the service is making loss, it will stop the service immediately. It is actually predictable that the service is going to make loss as the customers of budget flights are very unlikely to make phone calls at such a high cost.

Mid-air chit-chat is a novel idea indeed but its feasibility is doubtable. Many people are against the idea not only because of the high cost and imperfect service but also because of the mindset that phone calls on the plane is unnecessary. To make the idea take off the companies have so much legal and social obstacles to overcome so prudence of some companies is plausible. But once even the CEO of Apple thought there was no one willing to watch videos on a palm-sized screen. Look at the craze for ipod video clips today. Nothing is impossible.

posted by Yiqing @ 4:56 PM