Ryanair has never made any secret of its intention to allow travellers to use mobile phones on board its planes. Last week, however, it announced details of a deal with telecoms company On Air that should see the new service available to passengers from the beginning of next year provided the proposal gets the thumbs-up from European telecommunications regulators at a meeting in November.

Business travellers will no longer be out of contact while in"ight, allowing them to make calls and send and receive data from their laptops or mobile devices. The only barrier for the international commuter will be cost.

On Air's George Cooper (below) said last week that international "ights are likely to be treated as a "new country" for the purposes of calculating roaming charges. He also indicated that the tariffs in this new state, including Ryanair's cut of course, are likely to be even higher than the already exorbitant international roaming rates levied by mobile networks.