back to article Ryanair dial into mid-air mobile calls

Ryanair is just weeks away from letting its passengers make in-flight calls using mobile phones. Although the company’s yet to make a formal announcement, a spokesman for OnAir – the firm providing the technology behind Ryanair’s service - told Register Hardware that the operator will initially equip 14 Dublin-based planes …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Not for me

    I'm sure that this will be very popular with those who think they are so important that they cannot live without boring everyone else with their, "I'm in the plane/train/restaurant" phone calls.

    I sense air rage will be on the increase and I have made my last Ryanair flight for sure.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meh...

    Having been denied the possibility to phone on a flight I now can't really see why I would want to call someone in-flight anyway. I can see some use for business types though, but you can just use the credit card phone for that using your company's credit card.

  3. TimM

    "low fares airline"

    "calls could be priced at up to £2 ($4/€3) per minute – a little steep considering Ryanair’s the “low fares airline”."

    RyanAir has always charged large amounts for add-ons.

    Seen the price they charge for the pathetic food they have on offer on-board? !!! A phone call for £2 a minute is probably more value than their crummy food at sky high prices.

    And of course there are the low luggage limits with high charges for excess. Charges on top even for winter sports equipment unlike most of the standard scheduled airlines.

    Once you add everything up, and factor in the cost of getting to the back of beyond that is Stansted, they're no cheaper than a BA flight.

    Can't see your standard RyanAir customer bothering with mobile calls though and I welcome the price being suitably high. Only ones that might use it are drunk passengers who decide it's a laugh to phone their mates up from the plane and are too drunk to consider the cost. At least when they get over their hangover, they'll have an insanely high phone bill waiting for them, and the other passengers can laugh at them knowing this will be the case.

  4. CM
    Unhappy

    How they'll do it..

    Each call will be £2/min, regularly interrupted by a "have you bought your Ryanair bingo card yet?" plug. Slip the harassed stewardess a £10 and she'll bump off one of callers 1-6 to let you make a all. The next person's £10 will bump your call off.

    Cue air rage..

  5. Warhelmet
    Coat

    Misery Wagon

    Travelling on Ryanair is a grim enough experience as it is. I can't see that this would make the experience any better. Yes and encourage idiot kids all to get their mobiles out and play shit music through the tinny speakers.

    While we're at it, perhaps they should stick internet appliances in the back of the seats and charge people to make innane entries on MySpace and Facebook.

    And they should abolish queuing and make both check-in, boarding and disembarkment a free for all. They should sell vastly over priced snacks in packaging that self-destructs on open, showering other passengers with food. They should encourage people to drink their duty frees on the plane and get roaring drunk. They should employ staff with absolutely no customer service skills at all. They should fly to obscure airports with terminals that consist of little more than a tin shack, where local taxpayers subsidise them.

    Oh, sorry, they do a lot of that already.

    Mine's the one that I bought from a proper airline.

  6. Chris Leuty

    Someone has to say it so it

    I suppose as it's Ryanair, any call or text won't actually reach the intended recipient but someone about 50 miles away....

  7. Lotaresco
    Pirate

    I must be the odd one out

    Ryanair provide flights that are a fraction of the cost of other operators (OK about half the price) that go to where I want to be, rather than the capital city 90 minutes drive away. I take an iPod with acoustically isolated earphones so I can't hear the stupid announcements, generally sleep all the way, and have no desire to eat or drink on a flight that only lasts two hours. Chances I will make a phone call in-flight, less than a snowball's in a pizza oven.

    I know it's fashionable to hate them, but when I look at fellow travelers they tend to be penny-squeezing MEPs, celebrity chefs, and the "chattering classes" heading for their second homes. Exactly the people who complain about Ryanair. In all the time that I have used them, the flight has never been late, my luggage always arrives at the same time as me. With national carriers I usually end up in a different country to my luggage on a third of flights, and the flights tend to be 30 minutes late departing.

    If allowing some moron to rabbit on the phone keeps down the price of my ticket, then I'm happy. Pirate flag for O'Leary who deserves it.

  8. Jos
    Coat

    Oh noes...

    Really think this will be used by buisiness travellers? Really?

    I foresee the lines being taken full time by 6 people calling "their loved ones" to tell them they love them, every time the plane hits a bump, or makes a "funny noise", and annoying first-time travellers giving a detailed account on where they are located now ("hey, look up, I'm flying over your house now").

    Not to mention the people who keep updating their itinerary to the people waiting for them at the arrival hall.

    I also don't know if, or how I will tolerate all the latest "crazy frog", "diddle dees" and Nokia morse-codes on full volume during the course of the flight.

    (mine's the one with the GSM blocker in the pocket)

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