Some Euro airlines allow cellphones: Is North America far behind?

Do you hate the sound of crying babies and incessant, idle chatter on a flight?

If so, you’d better invest in a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones because the volume level on some flights in Europe and the Middle East will be louder in future.

The Canadian equivalent of Transport Canada approved earlier this week all non-3G mobile calls aboard aircraft registered in the United Kingdom, although the country’s aviation authority may still have to approve each airline’s in-flight cellphone usage plan.

Net result: flights on the other side of the Atlantic are about to get a whole lot noisier.

The day when cell phones are allowed on flights in Canada and the United States likely isn’t far off. Air France is already testing cell phone usage on some of its flights while Emirates Airlines allows its passengers to use wireless devices.

Will the Canadian airlines follow suit? The short answer is probably (over the long run).

The reason? People love their cell phones; soon most people with any kind of disposable income will own one, making it more likely that airlines will be pressured to let its customers use their precious devices on flights.

I had a discussion with a senior WestJet manager at a conference in Orlando last month. The manager told me the airline is examining the possibility of internet access via satellite for its passengers; it may look at cell phone use on its flights in the future.

She said the airline, Canada’s scrappy No. 2 to incumbent Air Canada, is doing so because of customer demand.

Pico-cell technology helps airlines overcome what had been a hurdle – ensuring signals that originate in the sky don’t interfere with those from the ground. Pico-cell technology allows carriers to route the calls through a receiver on the plane which relays transmissions to the ground via a separate air-to-ground network.

Though technical problems with cellphone calls in the sky have largely been overcome, there will be a strong movement to preserve the status quo. Besides the obvious annoyance factor, airlines and passengers for that matter fear terrorists could use mobile phones as explosives on planes.

I’m more worried about my sanity frankly. Hopefully, measures will be taken to curb cellphone usage on flights, so as to prevent incidents of “air rage.” One great way to curb usage may start with the cell phone service providers; perhaps Rogers, Bell and Telus can prices blast the already-exorbitant rates we pay to the moon for those that want to yak away in the air.

[tags] Pico-cell, Rogers, Bell, Telus, Air Canada, WestJet, Emirates, Air France, airlines [/tags]