Emirates announced today that it is to become the first Airline to offer In flight cell Phone usage. Service will beginning in January 2007. This highly anticipated and controversial service will be watched closely by all the other airlines. Will passengers love or despise the service? That’s the question, who’s answer every airline will be paying attention too.

The single largest issue for the Airlines is whether all that chatter in such closed quarters at 30,000 feet is going to become an issue of aggravation for most passengers that will cause in flight disputes between passengers. And if those possible disputes become security issues.

Would you pay a small fee to use your cell phone in Flight?

The other possible outcome is simply that societies are so use to cell phone chatter that it has become nothing more than background noise that most simply rarely even notice. If that’s the case then all airlines will rush to begin offering in flight cell phone service , through their own provider which will allow the Airlines to charge for the service. In the United States alone there are over 190 million cell phone users, that’s more than half the entire population. The Airlines would love to gain that usage as a revenue source .

The only question is whether passengers would be willing to pay for the ability to use a cell phone in flight.