Calling all virgins (Virgin Atlantic)

Member Name: davidg1234

Product:	Virgin Atlantic
Date:	07/07/00 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: air operators are moving forward and giving more of the services we demand

Disadvantages: still, I;d rather use my own phone

Virgin Atlantic said on Thursday it had become the first airline to allow passengers to receive phone calls to their mobile phone numbers while in flight.

A Virgin statement said it was also developing a system allowing passengers to send and receive email.

The phone system, developed by British Telecommunications, allows passengers to charge air-to-ground calls to their GSM accounts and to receive mobile calls on the plane's handsets.

After boarding, the passenger swipes a Mobile Connect card through the aircraft handset and dials a registration number. Callers to the GSM number pay only for the ground call.

A new system being developed by Matsushita Avionics will also give 200 hours of digital video on demand, Virgin said.

Summary: