KEY POINTS:
Air New Zealand domestic passengers may soon be able to send and receive text messages but, "for comfort rather than safety", phone calls will still be banned.
The company's deputy chief executive Norm Thompson has confirmed the airline is looking at installing technology so cellphones can be used
safely on domestic flights.
The move follows Emirates' announcement last week that it will allow cellphones to be used on its planes worldwide.
But while Emirates passengers will also be able to make and receive voice calls, Thompson said Air New Zealand would continue to ban calls.
"Kiwis will not want to sit in an aircraft listening to other people's conversations," he said.
One person who won't be using Emirates in future is Sir Bob Jones. Renowned for his dislike of people shouting into their mobiles, Jones said he had been a regular user of the airline but he would avoid it if cellphones were in use.
"I simply won't use it. I'll stop."
Jones said it was not cellphones he objected to - just rudeness.
"You always know when people are on a cellphone, because they start shouting.
"I'm perplexed by that. It's most inappropriate on a plane."
Emirates' move fuelled discussion at a Star Alliance airline meeting in Vienna last week, with Thompson saying the issue would be on the agenda as soon as he returned to New Zealand.
The technology to prevent mobile phones interfering with the cockpit, and to block phone calling while allowing texting, can be installed within months if Air New Zealand gives the go-ahead.
But only domestic flights, which fly over ground-based stations, can use the equipment.
International flights, which spend most of their in-flight hours over oceans, will remain no-go zones for mobile phones.
Air New Zealand would likely "be in the same space" as British airline BMI, said Thompson. BMI will allow texting to and from planes, as will Ryanair, within months.
A crucial difference, however, is that Air New Zealand will use technical filters to make voice calling impossible, while BMI CEO Nigel Turner said voice calls would be permitted in exceptional circumstances.
"If, for example, a plane is diverted from Heathrow to Stansted for landing we might allow a 10-minute amnesty for people to call loved-ones to let them know what's going on."
Turner said the BMI scheme would be "self-policing", with fellow passengers making sure others did not cheat by making or receiving voice calls at text-only times. "We are not going to have a free-for-all."
Air New Zealand's Thompson was sceptical about self-policing. "The last thing you want while you're in the air is an argument about someone making a mobile phone call."
