Passenger In-Flight Mobile Use Exceeds 40% on Malaysia Airlines

Passengers on Malaysia Airlines are proving some of the world's most enthusiastic users of in-flight mobiles as they embrace the AeroMobile service. On some flights, passenger adoption has exceeded 40%. Data devices such as Blackberry are proving popular, with data traffic on some flights exceeding 2MB, the equivalent of 40 Blackberry users sending and receiving email.

The service has benefited from collaborative marketing initiatives with leading telecoms providers in Malaysia, many launching with highly competitive pricing. As an introductory rate, a leading Malaysian Telco is charging just 0.99RM (circa. 19p) per text message. Receiving text messages is free of charge. These rates are comparable to cellular roaming rates.

Malaysia Airlines' Commercial Director Dato' Rashid Khan said: "We are delighted with passenger feedback from AeroMobile's ongoing marketing initiatives. In line with our aim to become the World's Five Star Value Carrier we are committed to delivering unrivalled levels of service to our passengers.

"Our cabin crew is trained to provide guidance to passengers on the usage of inflight mobile devices while maintaining privacy and comfort for all other passengers. This includes ensuring mobile phones are switched to silent mode during flights.

"I believe this has contributed to the overall positive customer experience on this service," he said.

Bjorn-Taale Sandberg, Chief Executive Officer of AeroMobile, said: "High awareness amongst passengers, competitive pricing and a reliable platform has seen our service with Malaysia Airlines reach new heights.

"Customer feedback has been very positive. The imaginative pricing, with texts for as little as 0.99RM as an introductory offer, has really driven up usage. As we expected, data and SMS usage has been prolific, demonstrating clear passenger demand.

"We are also very well placed to upgrade our capability with Malaysia Airlines as, uniquely, the Honeywell avionics are already in place on their fleet to enable future Inmarsat SwiftBroadband upgrades later this year".

The first Malaysia Airlines B777-200 was installed with the AeroMobile system during a routine maintenance check.

Posted to the site on 31st March 2009