Ryanair is not the first to allow mobiles on-board flights but it will be the model for others to follow, if it succeeds.  On-board mobile presents opportunities for the airline to increase revenue and improve the passenger experience.  What could be better?

It was just a matter of time before mobiles would be ringing and beeping on airplanes and Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s CEO, is unapologetic about it, saying, “if you want a quiet flight, use another airline.  Ryanair is noisy, full and we are always trying to sell you something.”  Ryanair is testing this system on 14 planes and Emirites already has this service on its Dubai / London route so we better get used to the fact that mobile will permeate the fuselage, but that may not be all that bad.

About the systems and costs: Companies that build these in flight mobile systems include Swiss owned OnAir (Ryanair’s provider) and British-based AeroMobile, which has fitted their systems into the Emirites airplanes.  AeroMobile charges about £200,000 (close to $400,000) to fit each airplane with its system.  Ryanair will be equipping 14 of its 160 something fleet, meaning that (assuming the £200,000 per system cost) the Irish airline should be spending close to £3,000,000, but we can assume that the savvy O’Leary drove down that price; so, let’s assume Ryanair fitted its 14 Boeing 747s for £2,000,000 which is not necessarily chump change, especially in this tight economy.  Each system allows up to 6 calls at a time (costing the user £2.00 per minute), unlimited text and Blackberry use and according to the OnAir website, Internet use; however,right now Ryanair is not advertising Internet connectivity.  Assuming, liberally and for the sake of simplicity, that Ryanair will take 50% from mobile providers’ roaming charges of the £2.00 per minute fee, then they will need to sell 2,000,000 in-use minutes to break even on the project.  Now assume that a plane can only sell this service for 10 hours a day (24 hours day - (grounded time+ ascent + decent)) that means that an average plane can sell 600 minutes and that by selling 100% of that inventory would generate £600, or £8400 for the 14 planes.  Thus, in the best of best case scenarios, the £2,000,000 assumed investment could be paid back in about 220 days.  But selling all those minutes to passengers who chose Ryanair based on price could be quite a challenge so they will have to figure out more ways to profit from this system such as music downloads, top-offs (for Americans that means recharging minutes for pre-paid phones) and possibly streaming in shows?

What I would like to see: It would be fantastic if Ryanair could digitize some of their on board magazine to enable passengers to download digital coupons, tickets to museums and or city transport tickets.  For example, an advertisement would instruct: “just text PRADA to 123 456 to receive a 10% discount at our Via Condotti store.” and voila you receive a promotional code or bar-code.   Ryanair is already selling language guides for £1.50 so this type of product may not be such a stretch plus they are about to have their full and noisy planes teaming with passengers able to buy lots of stuff with their cell phones which sounds like an O’Leary fantasy.  And also a passenger fantasy in that there will actually be something worth buying on an airplane in addition to the $5.00 Cokes and $7.00 stale sandwiches.

Who this would be good for: This type of service would be useful to everyone: the airline has a closed coupon system it does not have to worry about stocking, printing and distributing; advertisers have direct access to passengers getting ready to visit their city; paper is saved which reduces the weight of the airplane thus saving gas, money and creating less of a carbon footprint; moreover, the passenger has the benefit of possibly saving money on exclusive offers that can be distributed via airline only channels.  You see!  This system saves the world and whole airline industry.

The down side: Ryanair is taking a risk with this new system and for all of us it could mean unintentionally taking part in second-hand conversations.  Nevertheless, the pressure is on airlines to find more revenue sources to keep flying so let’s hope that some of these investments pay off.  In the United States this system seems to be a little farther off in that The Hang Up Act is currently before the House of Representatives and if passed would make it illegal, as in a crime, to talk over cell phones or VoIp.  However, if Ryanair and other non-US airlines can make this into a viable business model and “That Guy” does not have a loud conversation causing an “Air Rage” episode that gets filmed on a cell phone and is seen by 2M + people on YouTube then maybe the airline industry can make a buck while better benefiting us travelers.

Thanks for reading,

Chris

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