Air France

Call me; I’ll be on the plane

Cell Phones, ,

For a few months now, Air France has been testing in-flight data and cell-phone service on one of its planes. (I flew on one of the cell-phones-allowed flights and wrote about it in my Well-Mannered Traveler column on MSNBC.com.)

Now comes word that passengers on at least one TAP Portugal plane can send and receive e-mail and make flying phone calls as well. The airline has equipped a single Airbus A319 aircraft with the Mobile OnAir service and will test that service for six months.

On the test plane – and perhaps eventually on all TAP Portugal flights across Europe – passengers can use BlackBerry-type devices and mobile phones to send and receive emails and text messages, and to make and receive voice calls.

Cell-phones on airplanes. Good or bad? Vote!

Cell Phones

What does a World Bank economist flying to Morocco have in common with a young couple jetting home to Switzerland from Paris?

A fear of seat mates with cell-phones.

Air France is testing cell-phone service on one of its airplanes. I had a chance to fly on that plane last week and interviewed passengers about what they thought of that service.

Find out what they said in my Well Mannered Traveler column posted today on MSNBC.com and vote on whether or not you’d like to be able to make in-flight phone calls.

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Air France 50th 777 Ferry Flight

Events

On Tuesday Air France officials were in Everett, Washington to take delivery of the company’s 50th Boeing 777-300ER airplane. The flight home to Paris had room for a few guests.

Highlights of the trip:

  • A chance to see – and smell – a brand new airplane. Turns out, like new cars, new airplanes definitely have a very recognizable fresh smell.
  • The chance to explore the upgraded entertainment system, with personalized instruction from one of the designers. Passengers can choose from 85 on-demand movies (I squeezed in three fresh French comedies on the flight between Washington state and Paris) and create personalized music play lists from a very extensive and somewhat eclectic list of CDs. The first screen of jazz and blues options, for example, included complete albums from John Coltrane and Ray Charles.
  • By far, though, my favorite part of the entertainment system: Seatback Berlitz language classes, which provide lessons in key words and valuable phrases, such as “Somebody call the police!,” in 23 different languages.

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Heading to London?

Cell Phones,

One of the new airline routes introduced on March 31 (2008) as part of the EU – US Open Skies Agreement is daily Los Angeles-London service on Air France.

Passengers on this route cannot yet use Air France’s new in-flight cell-phone service (that’s being tested on one airplane that flies within Europe) but they can watch live afternoon news bulletins from the BBC World.

One topic the BBC is certainly covering: the story of airline bankruptcies (Aloha, ATA) and the ongoing fiasco in Heathrow’s Terminal 5.   British Airways is still canceling flights (schedules might be normal by Saturday) and trying to reunite passengers with checked baggage that’s been stuck at the airport since opening day.

FedEx has been called in to help ease the backlog and a convoy of “lorries” (sounds more dashing than “diesel trucks,” doesn’t it?) has taken thousands of bags to Milan for sorting.

Milan! Instead of handing out discount vouchers to inconvenienced passengers, the airline should offer free “baggage reunion” trips to Milan instead.

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