Airbus gets nod for on-board mobile, e-mail

Airbus SAS, the world's largest maker of commercial aircraft, won regulatory approval to offer mobile phone and e-mail services on planes.

The European Aviation Safety Agency certified the OnAir system that allows passengers to use phones and wireless e-mail devices in flight, Toulouse, France-based Airbus said in a statement yesterday.

OnAir, a joint venture between Airbus and communications industry body SITA, is "a response to the growing market demand for on-board connectivity,'' Airbus Senior Vice President Rainer von Borstel said in the statement.

Chicago-based Boeing Co, Airbus's primary competitor, cancelled the planned Connexion wireless e-mail and Internet service in August, citing lack of demand, and took a $230 million charge.

Deutsche Lufthansa, Europe's second-largest airline, and a group of technology companies tried to persuade Boeing to revive the plan, the Wall Street Journal reported on December 22 last year. Low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas, said in April it was seeking bids to provide on-board wireless connections.

The Airbus service will initially be offered by several airlines flying short-haul routes in western Europe, the plane maker said.

Airbus SAS also won a firm order from OAO Aeroflot for 22 of the planned A350 XWB airliner valued at $4.4 billion. Aeroflot, eastern Europe's largest airline, confirmed an initial agreement signed in March, Airbus said today in an e- mailed statement from the Paris Air Show. Aeroflot will receive the 270- to 350-seat planes between 2014 and 2017, the Moscow- based airline said.

The order comes after state-controlled Aeroflot agreed on June 9 to buy 22 of Boeing Co.'s competing 787 Dreamliner model in a contract valued at $3 billion at list prices. Aeroflot took more than a year to choose between the two planes and decided to buy both models to meet Russia's air travel growth.

Aeroflot will also acquire 10 A330-200 planes under an operating lease, Toulouse, France-based Airbus said. The companies didn't specify a value for the A350 contract. List prices exclude discounts that airlines usually receive for larger plane orders. The Russian carrier yesterday ordered five single-aisle Airbus A321 airliners in a contract valued at $440 million.