VietNamNet Bridge – VinaPhone, one of the three biggest mobile network operators in Vietnam, has been providing mobile call services on some foreign airlines for one month. Meanwhile, domestic airlines still do not intend to allow to provide the service on flights.

To Viet Thang, a senior executive of the national flag air carrier Vietnam Airlines, said there are tons of electric wire on aircrafts which, when meeting cell phone signals, would interfere the transmission system connecting with the control computer in the cockpit.

Therefore, Thang said, in order to provide mobile phone services during the flights, the electrical wire system on the aircraft must be coated with a kind of special material.

Also, in order to ensure the absolute safety of the flights, mobile phone calls can be made only when aircraft fly flat. Meanwhile, when taking off or preparing to land, pilots have to contact the traffic control unit through the computing system. Therefore, cell phone signals must not exist during that time.

All the domestic airlines still do not intend to provide mobile phone call services on domestic routes, though the issue has been discussed for the last many years.

In 2003, when receiving the first Boeing 777s, Vietnam Airlines once asked for the permission to provide Internet services on international flights. However, the plan was not approved by the watchdog because of the lack of reliable documents about the flight safety.

In fact, domestic mobile network operators are burning to provide mobile call services on flights. To date, 48 international flights have been providing flights to Vietnam, while Vietnam Airlines’ transport output makes up more than 40 percent of the market share.

Airlines have found out that the demand for making mobile calls during the flights is really high, especially the passengers taking long haul flights lasting more than five hours.

In the past, some air carriers allowed passengers to make call with cards at the telephones stuck at the business class seats, or at the phone boxes in the corner of passenger compartment. However, the problem was that passengers could not receive messages or incoming calls.

Nguyen Son Hai, the spokesman of VinaPhone, said mobile call services have been provided on the international flights from/to Vietnam since July 1, while VInaPhone is considering discussing with Vietnam Airlines to provide mobile call services on international flights of the air carrier.

This is for the first time in Vietnam, post paid subscribers of VinaPhone can make calls, receive calls and send messages during the flights of some international airlines, including Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, British Airways, Etihad Airways (UAE), Libyan Arab Airlines, EgyptAir, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian Airlines (Jordan), Saudi Arabian Airlines and TAM (Brazil).

Prior to that, only the call SMS, GPRS services of the two service providers, namely Norway’s AeroMobile and Switzerland’s OnAir, were available on international flights.

Currently, the charge of 4.3 dollars per minute is being applied to the calls to all directions. Meanwhile, passengers would have to pay 99,000 dong per minute for incoming calls and 0.82 dollars for a message.

Hai said that mobile phone services during flights have been provided by a lot of mobile network operators and airlines in the world thanks to the advances in satellite technology integrated with aircraft equipments.

Experts have also pointed out that providing mobile call services during flights is a growing tendency. Passengers who take long haul flights, have the high demand for entertaining themselves with mobile phones to kill time.

Source: NLD