Virgin Atlantic said on Thursday it had become the first airline to allow passengers to receive phone calls to their mobile phone numbers while in flight.
A Virgin statement said it was also developing a system allowing passengers to send and receive email.
The phone system, developed by British Telecommunications, allows passengers to charge air-to-ground calls to their GSM accounts and to receive mobile calls on the plane's handsets.
After boarding, the passenger swipes a Mobile Connect card through the aircraft handset and dials a registration number. Callers to the GSM number pay only for the ground call.
A new system being developed by Matsushita Avionics will also give 200 hours of digital video on demand, Virgin said.
