On These Phones You Really Need an Air-ea Code

Not long ago I was flying between San Juan, Puerto Rico, and New York City. The plane was scheduled to arrive at 5:20 p.m. I had planned to take a cab from Kennedy Airport to Manhattan, meet some friends and see a Broadway play that evening.

But 20 minutes after boarding our flight, we were told by the pilot that there would be an additional 30-minute ground delay. Once in the air we were told that there would be another delay, this time due to air-traffic control. Instead of landing at 5:20, we would be landing at 7:20.

Until recently there would have been no way to communicate to my friends that I had been delayed. But this plane was equipped with an airphone.

I called my friends, explained my situation and told them to leave my ticket at the box office. I missed the first 10 minutes of the play, but that was all.

In this case the airphone saved the day (or evening). And for many air travelers, it has become a way of life. They board their airplane, sit down in their seat and use the phone.

It started Oct. 15, 1984, when airphones were activated on 12 aircraft operated by five major airlines. The phones were an immediate success.

Initially, most of the airphones were used by people wanting simply to experience the novelty of the call. Thousands of airline passengers paid $7.50 each per call for the first three minutes (and $1.25 for each additional minute) to phone family and friends to ask the same question: “Guess where I’m calling from?” Some longer conversations ensued.

Then those folks got the bill, and from then on the phones were used strictly for business.

The number of pay phones in the sky has soared. More than 1,100 aircraft flown by 16 domestic airlines and two international carriers are equipped with the phones. Passengers have placed more than five million calls.

Some frequent fliers use the airphone almost without interruption on a coast-to-coast flight. (Phone bills of $300 or more are not unusual.) Even Pope John Paul II used the system, on Sept. 14, 1987, while flying between San Antonio and Phoenix.

The technology behind the airphone isn’t new. The portable units are connected to a transponder that searches for one of the 72 ground stations spread out across the United States.

Once located, the call is sent via line-of-sight radio signal. The ground station dials the phone number and the call is connected.

About the only major U.S. airline not to be equipped with the phones is USAir.

One reason, said a USAir official, “is that the majority of our flights are very short.”

But market research studies show that length of flight has no bearing on the traveler who needs to use a phone. Just ask Midway Airlines. Most of its flights are also short, but the airline is installing a new version of the airphone, called the “seatfone.”

Midway recently announced that it would equip its entire fleet with the new seatback version of the airphone. Already more than 30 of the 41 jets in the Midway fleet have the system. The new version features a hard-wired handset in the center seatback of each row or, on the DC-9, in the window seatback of rows of two-abreast seats.

“The best thing about the seatfone system is that you don’t have to get up and get the phone,” said David Hinson, Midway’s chief executive officer. This can be a problem, what with beverage and food carts clogging aisles. There are 60 seatfone units on each Midway aircraft.

About the only problem with the airphone system is that the number of transponders has not increased. Thus, with that many phones on a plane, there is a good chance that outgoing lines may be busy.

Overseas, British Airways is testing an airphone system that does not rely on ground stations. The British Airways “Skyphone,” developed jointly with British Telecom and Racal Avionics, is the first satellite-based international flight telephone system.

The system uses three over-ocean satellites (one positioned over the Atlantic, another over the Indian and a third over the Pacific) to give the airline worldwide coverage. The cost: $9.50 a minute. (British Telecom charges British Airways $6.70 a minute.)

Passenger phone systems aren’t limited to airlines. Most cruise ships are equipped with satellite communication systems, and the quality of the connection is quite good on both ends.

If you’re calling from a cruise ship, the radio room will place the call for you. If you’re calling from land you just need to know the area code for your ship to be able to find it.

For example, if the ship is in the Atlantic, Caribbean or Mediterranean, the area code is 871. In the Pacific it’s 872 and in the Indian Ocean 873. (For a ship in the Atlantic, dial 871-555-1212 to get the direct number, then dial it yourself.)

But one word of caution: Be prepared to pay for the service. It costs between $10 and $15 per minute to make a satellite call.

Passenger phones can also be found on Amtrak’s Metroliner Service operating between Washington, D.C., and New York City, and on Amtrak’s service between Los Angeles and San Diego.

The “railfone” service on these high-density business passenger trains has been a major success. Metroliner passengers average 3,000 calls per week, and the cost of a domestic call is quite reasonable: $1.50 per minute, with a $1.50 access charge.