Airfone’s history is one where a potentially groundbreaking air-ground radiotelephone that could have revolutionized in-flight communication gets supplanted by something more groundbreaking. Created by John D. Goeken – the founder of MCI Communications- airfone allowed passengers to make phone calls from airplanes. It was a significant advancement in aviation technology in the early 1980s. At its peak, Airfone was available on about 62% of commercial airplanes in the United States by 2001. The service was mostly used by business travelers who valued the option to converse while in flight.
If we were to take the following words of the inventor of the cellphone, which eventually led to the demise of the airfone
The purpose of technology is to make your life better. Most cell phones don’t do that very well — in fact, they force us to become engineers, to learn a bunch of new things. We shouldn’t have to do that. The ideal phone would be one where I would just talk to the phone — or maybe the phone would read my mind — and it would do things to make my life better. … If you try to build a device that does all things for all people, it won’t do any of them very well. So I think that’s where we are with cell phones today.
literally, we’d feel that “airphone” was “the ideal phone” – after all, you would just talk to the phone, it didn’t force learning new things, nor did it force anyone to be engineers. If we are to take Ambrose Bierce’s definition of the telephone as “an invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance”, on its face value, you’d place the airfone on the other end of the spectrum – a thing of imperfection. But what was this piece of technology called “airfone” that has become superannuated. And why did it become obsolete? Let’s find out.
History of Airfone: A few snippets
Airfone was started by a man who would later become its own rival – John D.Goenken. While the technology made it to aircraft in the 1970s, it was the decade that followed when the potential of airfone started to takeoff. In 1981, Western Union acquired a 50% share in Airfone. By 1987, More than 2 million calls had been placed from GTE Airfone Inc.’s airfone.
At that time, airfone did not have any competitors either. One of the reasons behind it was the fact that it had taken ten years to develop the technology and build a system of ground stations that facilitated communications from aircraft to the ground. Further, a lack of space on the electromagnetic spectrum kept other companies from competing with airfone.
Photo: National Museum of American History | Wikimedia Commons
The technology was remarkable for its time. Here are a few facts that gives us a cue:
- Calls made from airfone installed in aircraft were directed to one of the US’ 68 ground stations.
- Calls could last between half an hour to three-quarters of an hour before the connection got fuzzy.
- According to LA Times, calls used to be “billed electronically to the caller’s credit card–MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Carte Blanche, Diners Club or Air Travel Card–at a flat rate”.
- The parent company of airfone also had plans to provide connections that enabling data transmission from portable computers.
- Before the 90s, widebody aircraft were equipped with four to eight cordless airfones (which they could take to their seats to make a call) while the narrowbodies were equipped with one to two.
If we take a look at the number of aircraft using the airfone in the 80’s, we’d not be surprised that planes were looking to install a phone – one that could be mounted in the armrest or the back of a seat – for every passenger. After all, in an interview with the LA Times (in 1987), Sandra Goeken, a spokeswoman for GTE Airfone Inc., said that some airlines were installing airfones at the rate of one aircraft per day.
“About 475 planes of 16 major carriers have Airfone service, and it is expected to be in about 225 more by the end of the year, she said. About 3,200 commercial aircraft are registered in the United States…Since about 60% of the more than 1 million air travelers each day are business travelers, the company assumes they are its biggest customers. But the company is recording an increasing number of first-time users–22% more in the past six months”
Airfones were also being used to relay information about any in-flight medical emergencies to the ground. It was also expected that the people in one aircraft would be able to call people in another aircraft. Perhaps such use prompted the company to develop airfone’s parallel in railways- “railfone”. The following is a photo of a railfone.
| Category | Data/Figures |
| Initial Monthly Calls (1984) | 1,000 calls |
| Monthly Calls (Mid-1987) | 30,000 calls |
| Number of Planes with airfone services (1987) | 475 |
| Projected Monthly Calls (End of 1988) | Approximately 100,000 calls |
| Expected Revenue (End of 1987) | $25 million |
| Pricing Structure for calls within the US | In 1987, it was $7.50 for the first three minutes; $1.25 for each additional minute
In 2006: $3.99 per call and $4.99 a minute |
Photo: Mike Kuniavsky | Wikimedia Commons
9/11: The most remarkable event with airfone usage
Airfone helped relay information about the takeover of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. According to the FBI:
“ thirty-seven phone calls were placed from on board Flight 93 between 9:28 when the plane was hijacked until the time of the crash at 10:03. Thirty-five of these calls were made on the Airfones located on the back of the seats in the last nine rows of the plane. Credit card records reveal the time of the call, Airfone caller’s name, the number or numbers dialed, the duration of the call, and the row from which the call was placed.”
Perhaps, Todd Beamer, was the most famous caller from airfone as he said “Let’s roll”, perhaps indicating a counterattack planned against the hijackers.
Technology behind the airfone
Airphone used signals transmitted from the ground-based cell towers to the aircraft where Airfone was equipped. Since the cell towers were ground-based, airfones would find difficulty in communication when aircraft (equipped with them) flew over the oceans. In order to avoid interference with aircraft radio equipment, the airfones operated with extremely low power.
Further, the makers claimed that the voice quality of the calls made from an airfone would be comparable to that of any long-distance call made on land. However, users often encountered their calls being interrupted. Projections made in 1984 claimed that this service that started as a $20 million venture would be able to generate $750 million a year.
After purchasing half of the shares of airfones in 1981, Western Union sold them to GTE in 1986 for $39 million. Delta Airlines was the United States’ 1st public offering of the air-to-ground system using Airfone. Airfone’s technology was updated in 1992 after a joint project by GTE and IEX Corp. [Note: The hardware and software of the airfone were developed separately by Stratus Computers and IEX Corp., respectively]. Here’s how the hardware the software worked in tandem, as reported by NewsBank::
“ To that end, IEX and GTE will rely on “fault-tolerant’ machines from Stratus Computer Inc. of Marlboro, Mass. As the brains of “ground-switching nodes,’ the Stratus computers will keep track of calls in progress and manage their transfer from one cell to the next. The processors will guide the packets of data that come from the radio cells into switches that will connect to the regular telephone network that serves homes and businesses.”
The upgraded system of the airfone was called GenStar and had reduced dropped calls. According to an article published in VintageAirTravel.com, GenStar’s “user interface had screens and jacks added for fax capabilities”:
“A couple of things worth noting here is the first iteration of the Airfone was analog. In the early days of Airfone, cordless stations were installed on bulkheads in the cabin. You had to go to the station, insert your credit card into the reader. Once your card was verified, the cordless handset was released. The user was able to take the handset back to their seat and talk. Once the conversation was over, the headset was taken back to the cordless station and the credit card was then released.”
The fall of the airfones
While Delta was the first carrier to offer airfone services, Southwest Airlines, the budget carrier that helped coin the term “The Southwest Effect” was the first airline to terminate airfone’s use. Airfone’s disappearance from the aviation landscape can be attributed to several key factors The biggest of these was probably the high cost. American Airlines had been offering airfone services since 1996 on its 654 domestic route aircraft. However, the cost of “$7.60 plus tax per minute, along with a $2.99 connection fee per call” meant that with fewer than three calls being made per day on each plane.
After the attacks, the prices of Airfone dropped, albeit temporarily. Airfone President Bill Pallone was quoted to have reported about the fare drop:
“We appreciate the unique challenges the airlines are facing as a result of these terrorists, and we want to help our partners in any way we can…We hope these low rates provide an extra benefit to air travelers as more passengers begin to return to the sky.”
The following prices were effective on airfones, from September 21 to October 5 in 2001:
- 99 cents per-minute for direct-dial domestic voice calls.
- 99 cents for a one-time initial charge for such calls.
Verizon Communications declared the end of Airfone services in 2006 in all commercial aircraft (around 1,000), internet technology was already on the rise. At that time, Airfone had 140 employees, some of whom were transferred within Verizon, but the company noted that they needed “to balance the human resources with the expenses incurred to run the business.“, reported NBC:
“ Airfone signaled its waning interest in the business last month with an early exit from an auction of nationwide airwaves by the Federal Communications Commission that could lead to cheaper in-flight broadband. Its apparent maximum bid of $12.4 million was surprisingly low for the country’s largest telecommunications company.”
Proliferation of the internet and cellphone technology
According to Harvard, the number of mobiles per person has increased by more than 100% in the U.S. and Europe, and has helped establish 7.3 billion connections around the world. And with cheap internet, information related to flight delays can be easily conveyed. There are also numerous flight tracing websites where one can look at the real-time status of aircraft. Further, some airlines allow Wi-Fi services for its passengers, such as the A350s (A350s are deployed in some of the longest one-stop flights) operated by Indian Airlines.
Newer technology, much like telephones, don’t allow “disagreeable person keep his distance” (as Ambierce commented). One might want to recall that a cell phones does indeed do “all things for all people” , such as providing the option of not simply calling someone (as was the case with airfone) but also texting, internet-ing, and much, much more – something that airfone was never able to do.