THE aircraft cabin as a mobile-free haven looks to be under threat, if trials launched by a US telecoms company prove successful.

Aircell has installed a wireless cellular phone that can be used anywhere in the cabin on an Airbus owned by the US no-frills carrier Frontier. Aircell’s sales and marketing boss, Bill Peltola, says the trial is the first phase in a plan to allow passengers to use their own mobiles. “We have the technology today,” he says, “but there are a number of regulatory steps before this can happen.”

The Aircell system, which has been proven not to interfere with aircraft electronics, uses the ground-based analogue networks that are common in rural America.

Peltola believes domestic US passengers will be able to use their own mobiles from early 2004, at a fraction of the cost of existing air-to-ground phones. Europe and Asia have predominantly digital mobile networks but Aircell expects to have a digital system in place a year after analogue.

British Airways says it would be interested in the development if it is cleared by the Civil Aviation Authority. “We would also want to know that our passengers would be happy for it to be introduced,” a spokesman said.