Air France has initiated mobile phone calls permissible to passengers boarding its flights. Though there is lack of enthusiasm among the first passengers for the quality of the service provided.

The reason is that onAir's service is accessible on a limited number of flights. There is a low-power base station on the plane which connects calls via satellite to serve the passengers. It means the calls obstruct the lag connected with satellite communications and the service is limited- at the moment only six can be made all together.

It is revealed in The New York Times that Air France passengers avail the facility to make calls, but many a time repeated efforts are needed to access and incoming calls failed to link altogether. One of the passengers speaks even when connected: 'It sounds like I'm talking to a small robot'.

The major distress in the service is a lack of sound quality which is seized as a main source of passengers raising their voices. It resembles precisely to the kind of annoyance originating which impelled Lufthansa to declare it will not be installing the technology incompatible.

"We are not concerned about the noise because our cabins have never been quiet places. People are constantly coming up and down the aisles selling scratch cards or food and we believe there is a market for this. For which we read 'we believe there is money in this', though no such concerns at Ryanair", says Peter Sherrard, its head of communications.