Emirates Airline: Phone calls don’t cause problems on our airplanes

Today’s your last chance to comment on allowing phone calls on airplanes, and we have one airline saying its customers like the ability to place a call while in flight.

Emirates Airline filed comments saying that it began allowing in-flight calls in March 2008. To date, passengers have placed more than a million voice calls and sent more than 16 million text messages.

“The response of passengers to the service has been overwhelming positive. In fact, only two negative complaints have been registered to date,” an Emirates vice president, Will Lofberg, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“In contrast, as passengers have come to expect the service being available, we have received hundreds of expressions of disappointment from passengers when they discovered inflight mobile voice connectivity was not offered on their particular aircraft,” Lofberg stated.

He estimated that Americans rank third in onboard usage of cellphones on Emirates flights, behind passengers from the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Emirates shuts off the ability to make calls when the flight is in U.S. airspace, he noted. Most commenters have opposed lifting the ban on in-flight telephone calls, although many supporting the allowance of texting.

The Air Line Pilots Association urged DOT to continue the ban:

“The overall safety of an entire flight, both on the ground and in flight, is primary. The use of cell phones by passengers may have a negative operational safety impact on the ability of flight attendants to perform their required duties. Passenger use of cell phones for conversations during flight could result in flight attendants being required to have adversarial interactions with passengers to resolve avoidable arguments and/or disputes. The overall cabin atmosphere may more frequently deteriorate to unacceptable levels, perhaps even to the point of adversely affecting and jeopardizing the safety of all occupants. The flight deck crew’s involvement may also be required if a diversion is necessitated due to unruly passenger behavior.

“Security of flight is essential and ALPA is involved with various efforts to maintain and enhance aviation security. In‐flight use of mobile broadband technology could be exploited by terrorists to harm aviation security, negating any of the technology’s benefits to law enforcement. We do not believe this public docket is the proper forum to discuss specifics of our concerns, but we would be pleased to discuss them privately.”