Virgin Atlantic offers in-flight mobile calls

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Virgin Atlantic is the UK’s first airline to offer mobile phone calls in flight. Currently it’s only on Airbus A330 planes from London to New York but will be on 17 planes on at least 10 routes by the end of the year.

We’re not sure how good this is. Imagine how annoying it will be to have a businessman yelling acronyms in your ear on one side while a weepy teen laments about being stood up in the other. Luckily the carrier AeroMobile (part owner by Panasonic) will be charging roaming rates that should dissuade most from using it excessively.

Alright we’re being difficult, this is a good thing and could prove very useful. But with American law demanding your phone be off 250 miles from its airspace, your call will have to be quick.

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Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website. Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.