Another First For AeroMobile With Start Of Boeing 777 Operations

July 30, 2008 – AeroMobile, the pioneering provider of inflight mobile phone services, reached a new milestone this week with the first full service entry of its system on a Boeing 777 aircraft.

The system is now operational on a Boeing 777-300 of its launch customer Emirates, enabling the airline’s passengers to safely use their mobile phones to make voice calls and send SMS text messages. This is first time such services have been implemented on Boeing 777 commercial flights anywhere in the world.

The AeroMobile system was launched with Emirates in March, when it was installed on one of the airline’s Airbus A340-300 aircraft, enabling the world’s first authorised mobile phone calls on a commercial flight. Emirates is continuing to install the system on all its aircraft and currently has 10 aircraft installed with the system including Airbus A340-300, A340-500, A330-200  and Boeing 777 aircraft. Installations are progressing during regular scheduled maintenance and now take less than 2 days to complete.

The Emirates’ Boeing 777-300 with the system installed is operating a variety of routes for the Dubai-based international airline, including flights to Europe and Australia.

AeroMobile chief executive Bjorn-Taale Sandberg said: “The installation of our system on board Emirates’ Boeing 777 aircraft is another first for AeroMobile, and clearly demonstrates our ability to offer our technology to airlines using either Boeing or Airbus aircraft. The number of Boeing 777s operated by Emirates and other AeroMobile customers means that this introduction is a key step in allowing passengers to keep in touch when they fly.”

“There has been overwhelmingly positive feedback since the service launched in March, with between 40 to 60 per cent of passengers switching on their phones on flights where the service is available,” he added.

As expected, the majority of calls are made on daytime flights with minimal use on night flights. The average length of calls is around 2.5 minutes. Passengers are not only using the system for phone calls as the text messaging capability is also proving very popular.

Emirates has guidelines for the appropriate use of phones on board, including requesting passengers to have their phones switched to “silent” mode during the flights. The airline’s award-winning cabin crew are also able to control and monitor use of the system and will be in full control of its use throughout flights.

For more information about AeroMobile, visit www.aeromobile.net

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Notes to Editors
AeroMobile Limited is a UK-based company owned by ARINC Inc and Telenor ASA. It has been pursuing the objective of allowing the safe use of passengers own mobile phones and PDAs since 2003 in response to market demands. AeroMobile is the first in-flight mobile technology to be commercially available and first flew in June 2005 on Boeing’s 777-200LR ‘Worldliner’ demonstrator aircraft, prior to launching trial services with Qantas Airways in April 2007 and full commercial operations with Emirates airline in March 2008. 

AeroMobile is teamed with Panasonic Avionics Corporation, the Panasonic’s market-leading in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems provider, to offer the AeroMobile aircraft technology under the eXPhone brand as an integral part of Panasonic’s IFE systems.

For more information contact:
Steve Double or Charlie Hampton
at Bell Pottinger Business & Brand
Telephone: 020 7861 2449/2431
E-Mail: champton@bell-pottinger.co.uk