Call home from MAS flights

Wednesday November 5, 2008

PETALING JAYA: Passengers travelling on certain Malaysia Airlines flight will be able to use their mobile phones and Blackberry devices effective immediately.

MAS has teamed up with AeroMobile, the world’s leading in-flight mobile phone operator, to become the first carrier in Asia to offer inflight mobile phone and data services.

The lightweight system was installed on one MAS Boeing 777-200 aircraft.

That aircraft will operate the route to Tokyo’s Narita Airport as flight MH70 today and passengers on board will be able to use the service.

The service will cover selected European routes, Australia, and across the Asian region including China and Japan.

The facility has been extensively tested on the aircraft over the last few weeks, testing all aspects of the system inflight using stan–dard BlackBerrys and mobile phones.

Passengers can only use their mobile phones or Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) during the “cruise” phase of the flight and would not affect the aircraft systems and ground telecommunication networks.

AeroMobile supports the general packet radio service (GPRS) mobile data to support BlackBerry and other “push e-mail” services including e-mail attachments, as well as voice calls and SMS.

All four Malaysian mobile operators have agreed to allow their customers to roam internationally on board the aircraft and users would be billed on their regular phone bills as with any other international roaming call.

The GPRS data feature exploits AeroMobile’s unique capability to operate BlackBerry and other e-mail services using Inmarsat’s Swift64 satellite system, which has been added to the trial B777 aircraft.

The aircraft was equipped with the system during a routine maintenance check, and has received aviation safety approvals from both the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation and the European Aviation Safety Agency.

MAS managing director/CEO Datuk Seri Idris Jala said the service was part of its promise of a Five Star Value Carrier.

“The trial will be conducted for a period of time and if the evaluation findings are positive, we aim to have this facility fully operational in the remaining wide body aircraft of our fleet by next year,” he added.

SOurce: The Star