Your next long-haul flight could come with a new kind of background noise: someone else’s phone call.
British Airways now allows in-flight voice calls on aircraft equipped with Starlink Wi-Fi, signaling a shift in what’s considered possible—and acceptable—in the air. The carrier’s first Starlink-equipped flight took off March 19, beginning a broader roll out the airline says will bring the technology to more than 300 aircraft over the next two years.
Under the new setup announced on the British Airways website, passengers can make calls, as long as they “keep [their] voice low and use headphones.”
British Airways isn’t the first carrier to adopt the use of Starlink, which uses low-Earth orbit satellites to deliver faster internet with significantly lower latency—enough to make real-time communication practical in a way earlier systems weren’t. A growing number of airlines, including United States–based carriers United Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and Alaska Airlines, have upgraded their onboard Wi-Fi systems with the service but have stopped short of allowing voice calls. In other words, the technology is no longer the limiting factor, now it’s about how airlines choose to use it.
A long-standing ban—at least in the U.S.
For travelers accustomed to flying within the USA, the idea of making a phone call at 30,000 feet may sound, literally, shocking. In-flight voice calls in domestic airspace are still effectively banned. The Federal Communications Commission prohibits traditional cellular voice calls onboard aircraft, a rule that dates back to concerns about interference with ground networks. That restriction applies specifically to using your phone’s cellular connection in the air—not to internet-based calling over Wi-Fi. The Federal Aviation Administration has historically supported restrictions on onboard devices out of an abundance of caution, although advances in aircraft systems have reduced many of the original safety concerns.
Even as airplane Wi-Fi has improved, making it easy to text, email, or stream while flying, U.S. airlines have avoided allowing voice calls, citing passenger comfort and the challenges of managing cabin noise. That includes flights where connectivity is sponsored by major telecom companies. Delta Air Lines, for example, offers free Wi-Fi for many passengers through a partnership with T-Mobile, and American Airlines has offered access tied to AT&T on select routes. Even in those cases, messaging and browsing have been permitted, but voice calls on apps like FaceTime or Zoom are typically blocked or discouraged—not because federal law explicitly bans them, but because airlines choose not to allow them.
Congress has even weighed in on the issue. In 2018, U.S. lawmakers wrote legislation aimed at preventing airlines from allowing voice calls over Wi-Fi, effectively trying to codify what had already become standard practice. However, as Gary Leff, an aviation expert who pens the blog, View from the Wing, notes, “No final rule was ever actually adopted.”
Across much of Europe, however, the rules are looser. Regulators including the European Union Aviation Safety Agency allow airlines to decide how onboard connectivity is used, including whether to permit voice calls over Wi-Fi. The European Commission has also pushed forward plans to enable 5G connectivity on aircraft, giving airlines the infrastructure to offer a more seamless, always-on experience.
“The bigger question is how British Airways plans to mitigate the uptick in frustrations felt by other travelers,” Katy Nastro, a travel expert at Going, an airline-deals newsletter and app, told Afar. “Even a few inches of a reclined seat in another passenger’s space can be the catalyst for a quarrel, imagine what a few conference calls can do midflight?”
What experts think
Some industry analysts say the question is now less about whether the technology works, and more about who gets to decide how it’s used.
“This seems like something that airlines should manage, not governments,” Leff says. “Perhaps no major airline would permit calls, but the decision and enforcement against calling (as opposed to criminally bad behavior) shouldn’t be outsourced to the government. Most people hate the idea, so I’m in the minority who think that it’s probably OK and in any case not something that should be illegal.”
Others are more skeptical, pointing to the realities of a shared cabin environment.
“The ones who will benefit are the businesspeople and the socially savvy, who stay glued to a phone or laptop,” Nastro says. “Those who will lose are all the other passengers now invited into those people’s calls, with no decline button.”
