Well I suppose it had to come.
After saying it would happen in 2006 and frequently in 2008, Ryanair introduced to passengers the chance to use their mobile phones on some flights yesterday.
So if you feel like paying between £2 and £3 a call you can indulge yourself by saying unecessary things like “I’ll be landing in ten minutes” and “Can you put the kettle on in about half an hour” and other earth shattering items like that as you sit hunched up in the garishly blue and canary yellow decor of their planes.
Air France and bmi have trialled it, Emirates allows it and, in the ever increasing search for revenue, other airlines will probably jump on the bandwagon.
I said in this newsletter a good while ago that I would be the person who would book with an airline that promised not to introduce mobile phone usage. Now I am concerned that, in a few years time,there may not be an airline that will do that. Am I a fossil rooted in a bygone age?
Yes probably but it doesn’t mean to say I like it and although I go to Dublin regularly,(at the moment it is only on Dublin based planes) other airlines will see me rather than Ryanair but how long will my wallet hold out? That’s what Michael O’Leary, the Chief Exec of Ryanair relies on. He is quoted in Friday’s Daily Telegraph as saying that passengers shouldn’t object because they don’t fly with Ryanair for peace. (Too right you don’t. From the moment you enter their cabins the hard sell jingle begins.) Again to quote the Telegrpah, “Anyone who likes to sleep, we will wake them up and sell them a sandwich or coffee.” So far his cabin crew have been politer than him because they haven’t tried that with me.
Maybe that will be the limit?
Or not, depending on my wallet!