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American Morning
Minding Your Business: Coming Soon: Cell Phones in Flight
Aired October 23, 2002 - 09:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Andy Serwer, "Fortune" magazine editor at large, "Minding Our Business." The airlines about to take a quantum leap, I am just not sure whether it's forward or backward.
Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Jack.
We're talking about making telephone calls on airplanes. Now, of course, everyone knows those earphone things, they're terrible. Those are the worst form of communication ever known to man. Two companies now are looking to allow you to use your cell phone on the on the planes.
So they'll be sitting next to you, "Hi, I'm on the plane on my cell phone." So anyway, that's going to be a problem. We want to talk a little bit about these in-flight phones, though, because this business has been terrible.
Used to be that this is how many of these calls are made per flight, Jack.
CAFFERTY: OK.
SERWER: Three years ago, four calls per flight. Now, the business has deteriorated. So now, on each flight with those earphones only 1.5 calls made.
CAFFERTY: Why has this gone down?
SERWER: Well, it's a terrible -- there's two reasons. It's a terrible service. You use those things.
CAFFERTY: I don't use them.
SERWER: I have used them.
You can not hear the person on the phone. That's a real problem. The other thing is they don't work. You slide your card. People are laughing me. I am sliding my card for hours. And the other thing is they charge you an arm and a leg. These things are so -- here is what Verizon is charging. That's the top line. You have a $4 fee just to get setup, and then it's basically $4 a minute when you're on these things.
The new service, there will be no fee and it will be a lot cheaper. So you have about 75 cents, but I think on top of your costs anyway. So it's still a pretty expensive proposition. But these airlines say, that they got to make a buck, and we know the way that they are going right now, that's actually true.
CAFFERTY: All right, Andy, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 23, 2002 - 09:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Andy Serwer, "Fortune" magazine editor at large, "Minding Our Business." The airlines about to take a quantum leap, I am just not sure whether it's forward or backward.
Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Jack.
We're talking about making telephone calls on airplanes. Now, of course, everyone knows those earphone things, they're terrible. Those are the worst form of communication ever known to man. Two companies now are looking to allow you to use your cell phone on the on the planes.
So they'll be sitting next to you, "Hi, I'm on the plane on my cell phone." So anyway, that's going to be a problem. We want to talk a little bit about these in-flight phones, though, because this business has been terrible.
Used to be that this is how many of these calls are made per flight, Jack.
CAFFERTY: OK.
SERWER: Three years ago, four calls per flight. Now, the business has deteriorated. So now, on each flight with those earphones only 1.5 calls made.
CAFFERTY: Why has this gone down?
SERWER: Well, it's a terrible -- there's two reasons. It's a terrible service. You use those things.
CAFFERTY: I don't use them.
SERWER: I have used them.
You can not hear the person on the phone. That's a real problem. The other thing is they don't work. You slide your card. People are laughing me. I am sliding my card for hours. And the other thing is they charge you an arm and a leg. These things are so -- here is what Verizon is charging. That's the top line. You have a $4 fee just to get setup, and then it's basically $4 a minute when you're on these things.
The new service, there will be no fee and it will be a lot cheaper. So you have about 75 cents, but I think on top of your costs anyway. So it's still a pretty expensive proposition. But these airlines say, that they got to make a buck, and we know the way that they are going right now, that's actually true.
CAFFERTY: All right, Andy, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
