BA to allow texting on some flights

British Airways is to allow GSM/GPRS-based texting, websurfing and emailing on two of its London-New York flights, as of later this year.

The service, provided by OnAir (a joint venture between Airbus and the airline industry body SITA), will be restricted to the airline's new 32-seater, all-business-class flights in the autumn.

A BA spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the facility would initially have voice calling disabled, but - soon after the launch - trials of mile-high chit-chat would begin. BA will then "evaluate the feedback from the customers onboard", so let's see whether the business crowd values keeping in touch verbally over the supposed peace and quiet of business class travel.

Personally, I'm all in favour of hearing as little inflight chatter as possible, and I'm someone who doesn't really mind flying in the first place. But, then again, I'm not a businessman.