Texting while in flight
 

I was on a US flight PHX-PHL last week and the pax next to me was texting off and on the entire flight. I further know his phone was not in airplane mode because the time displayed on the phone was always updated to the correct time zone while my phone remained on Phoenix time during the trip. Am I naïve or is this more common (the texting) than I thought?

As this situation is not unique to US Airways, I'm moving the thread over to the Travel Technology forum for the experts to weigh in.

Thanks.


aztimm

Was this a Wi-Fi equipped flight? Was the PAX using an i.Phone? With i.Phones, you don't actually have to have a third party app to text i.Phone to i.Phone over a Wi-Fi network i.Message is preloaded on i.phones and as long as both parties have i.Phones they can send and rec'v texts using Wi-Fi.

If I need to keep in touch I Whatsapp via wifi/gogo while in flight. Perfectly legal and FAA compliant. There are other apps which text using wifi

Use iMessage to do this almost every flight.

Even if his phone was connected only to WiFi and in airplane mode, the time should change as the plane moves and connects to different towers.

And there are tons of internet-based messaging apps he could have been using. iMessage, as noted, is one. Hangouts, which you can integrate with SMS (or has SMS integrated automatically on some devices). Plus who says it was SMS - unless you specifically looked and saw. In which case, was it iPhone or Android?

I was connected to gogoinflight myself and my time did not adjust as we passed through the time zones. Notwithstanding that, I accept the other comments that he could have been using a wifi based message package. Thanks.

For the record, I once accidentally left my phone not in airplane mode on a flight. When I checked my phone and saw, I had no service anyways up there.

I have done the same and found welcome texts from Georgia, UAE and Iran . Some signals must get through while overflying those areas.

Hm. I've got an Iphone 5S. And if it's airplane mode on, it's not possible to use WI-FI...

Sure it is. After turning on airplane mode, turn on wifi.

And welcome to FlyerTalk!

You'll get sporadic service, though probably not strong or consistent enough to make a call. It is enough, as you've seen, to get the welcome text.

So switch to Android!!

In all seriousness, it is absolutely possible.

What happens with TMobile on GoGo? Clearly there is a deeper integration the way it works.

And you can surf the web, as well as text while flying in airplane mode. As I am doing now on ATT with iMessage.

Welcome to flyertalk. And as noted above after you turn on airplane mode you can manually turn on both WiFi and Bluetooth as I type on my BT keyboard somewhere over the US midwest.

This could explain it: http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/free-i...uncarrier.html

Essentially tmobile has a partnership with gogo where you can text from your phone using your cell phone number and not some third party app such as whatsapp.

If the plane was at cruise altitude it wouldn't be possible to get a regular cell signal. As others have noted T-Mobile now has a partnership with Gogo. Probably just using iMessage or some other third party app that looks like texting.

You should be able to receive a cell signal until you reach around 4,000 feet AGL (above ground level). Nothing really scientific to back this up other than what I find when I go flying in my Cessna.

Guys, thanks to all!
My bad :) it's really possible to turn on wi-fi :)

If you're using the inflight Internet, your "location" is static, it doesn't change during the flight.

It is deeper than that. Tmobile enables cellular service over wifi, whereas other carriers don't. For example, you can use wifi to make a call on some Tmobile devices. You cannot do that on any other carrier.

Right. I know about the UMA technology. However, it was blocked on gogo prior to this deal. Trust me, I tried it with my UMA or as they call it now wifi calling phones. I've been using the tmobile wifi calling feature overseas for at least 7-8 years. It worked best on the samsung flip phone that did the handoff well. The new ones didn't do handoff but I read the iphone 6 handoff works well so I can't wait to try that. Apologies for the tangent. Of course this is kinda moot since you can couple the tmobile international free data with vonage to make US landline calls free of charge.

You can't do it on other carrier's devices without specific apps such as Skype or Google Voice.