The first flight to or from the UK with inflight mobile use allowed was operated by Emirates airline.

On the 7th April, the flight service from Dubai to London Heathrow arrived.  Reportedly, one in five passengers onboard used their mobiles to make over 30 calls and to send and receive around 100 text messages.

Mobile use on flights is still banned in the UK’s airspace, however a recent fuling from the communications watchdog Ofcom is anticipated to fully authorise the use of mobiles on aircraft sometime in the near future.

The airline carrier Emirates allows passengers to use mobiles on just ten per cent of its flights at the moment and this is restricted to when planes are over 23,000 feet.

Passengers also have to keep their mobiles on silent at all times to avoid disturbing other passengers and so far it appears to have been a success and there have been no complaints from customers.

A spokesperson for Emirates, Patrick Brannelly, said:

“The cabin noise level on airliners is such that you cannot hear people making phone calls and the call quality has been so good there has been no need to shout.”

Emirates use AeroMobile technology, which works with a weaker mobile phone signal to avoid interfering with navigation equipment.  It has also been trialled with other airlines such as Qantas, Air France-KLM and Turkish Airlines.