Aircraft mobile usage developments and how to avoid the extremely high charges on some airlines.

Using a mobile phone whilst flying can be extremely expensive but not always! Cultural and technological changes are leading to a greater exposure to potentially nasty bill shock. Learn more about how the experience is changing and how to avoid possible costs.

The days of being told to put your mobile phone into airplane mode for the duration of a flight are now behind us as the airlines increasingly provide a mobile or Wi-Fi signal and the threat of interference with aircraft equipment seems to be no longer a concern with modern phones and better shielding of aircraft systems. In fact providing a signal has become a potential revenue stream or a customer experience initiative for the airlines. This has manifested itself in two ways with the provision of a paid for service or as a free or freemium service.

Aircraft phone reception (once beyond the reach of mobile signal received from ground masts) is reliant on equipment within the aircraft transmitting a signal within the cabin and then backhauling via satellite. There are two main companies that offer a mobile signal service, AeroMobile and Sita’s Mobile OnAir. (We will talk about Wi-Fi later). Many airlines offer this service including Emirates, Etihad, Aer Lingus (Transatlantic), Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, and Qatar. Where available customers can “choose” to utilise this service but as a captive audience with no competition and arguably expensive equipment and connectivity to support aircraft roaming, this has been expensive. Pricing is often £5-£6 per MB. This means a single download of a 30 minute audio podcast could cost £180! The big problem that TNC is seeing is that customers are now not using airplane mode (knowing it’s no longer a requirement and often with fewer or no instructions to do so whilst on some flights they are only encouraging its use during take-off and landing when cabin crew might want to be able to get passengers’ attention should an emergency require it). For some users they may assume there is no cost to them if they continue to receive signal after take-off or they ignore any SMS warning of costs. As such users are either ignorant that they are roaming and/or don’t know it’s very expensive (particularly if they have some form of roaming bundle that covers their usual destinations) or choose to ignore the costs given the company pay their mobile bill.

There is also an increasing cultural acceptance of use of mobiles in the confines of an aircraft beyond simply watching/listening to downloaded content. Customers accustomed to streaming on the ground or taking Teams calls, etc are now bringing these habits on to the airplane without the realisation of the possible costs. TNC has seen a significant rise in customer’s usage of expensive mobile services whilst travelling on airplane.

As these services (OnAir and AeroMobile) are relatively low speed and contended (shared across other passengers) it is unlikely that a passenger can download/utilise video content on these older platforms however the introduction of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) Satellite connectivity (specifically Starlink) may challenge this due to the higher capacity available.

Where services are chargeable the main ways to mitigate or avoid costs are as follow

• Ensure airplane mode is activated
• Ensure in your device settings that background app refresh is set to Wi-Fi only
• Turn off Wi-Fi Assist
• Consider turning off Mobile Data in individual apps
• Consider turning off data roaming (potentially turning it back on when appropriate albeit airplane mode is easier to use and achieves the same thing for in-flight concerns)
• Use roaming caps to set financial limits to expenditure on roaming
• Finally as TNC has done on a numerous occasions ensure that any procurement process considers the historic exposure and build this into modelling and requirements potentially to ensure aircraft roaming is part of any roaming bundles or day passes or failing that, that the costs are minimised, understood and the user base educated about the potential costs.

We must consider that for some users this service may be an essential and valuable work tool and that without access flight time would have otherwise been dead time.

The Rise of Starlink

Many airlines are evolving their in-cabin mobile service by installing Starlink (infamously Ryanair aren’t – claiming it was an expense that their customers wouldn’t pay for on their often short haul flights).

Starlink connectivity comes in the form of Wi-Fi and may be chargeable with a landing page set up or as in the examples of BA and Emirates a free service designed to add to the customer experience.

Those responsible for mobile fleet cost management may consider the introduction of free Starlink or even expensed via credit card to be a relief and a positive as users move away from roamed Aircraft charges however it is worth considering that the impact may be a double-edged sword. As users are increasingly exposed to free Wi-Fi on some flights their behaviours may change for all flights and instead of accepting the airplane as a phone free zone, they now consider use of data as a given and choose to ignore or be ignorant of the possible costs when on flights that still offer chargeable and expensive aircraft mobile signal. This process will likely be exacerbated by crowd behaviour – you see someone taking a call on a plane encourages you to do the same, so it’s not only advertised that this is possible but it also becomes a culturally acceptable thing to do. It is striking how many people are actively taking calls on the tube in London since 4G signal was introduced to many tunnels and stations over the last couple of years and, whilst that doesn’t carry any premium, it is suggestive of how quickly people may adapt to using their devices more meaningfully on airplanes.

British Airways (and related IAG companies) start their roll out in March, United Airlines have already installed Starlink on 25% of their fleet and expect 50% by end of 2026. Lufthansa has announced a freemium service rolling out in 2026. Emirates has started and expect full conversion by mid-2027. Virgin too expect to complete by mid-2027. Many other long-distance airlines are jumping on this bandwagon. And it’s not just Starlink, other more nascent LEO providers are quickly establishing services, Air Canada has begun a roll out using OneWeb whilst the likes of US carrier JetBlue expect to begin using Amazon Leo services in 2027.