Airlines considering rolling out inflight mobile services following Ofcom's announcement of plans to enable such facilities should ensure they consider flyers' needs before doing so.

This is according to James Fremantle of the Air Transport Users Council, who said that while some carriers may find that most passengers will be in favour of such services, they should also consider the views of those likely to be bothered by inflight mobile use.

He suggested that airlines look into ways in which disruption can be minimised for passengers if they do choose to install mobile phone facilities.

"[Airlines] should ... put into place measures that would alleviate some of the main problems that passengers might have - by only letting passengers use their phones at certain times, [or] if somebody is continually using it and annoying passengers, give the cabin crew the power to ask them to stop," Mr Fremantle remarked.

In 2006, the International Air Passengers Association revealed that 45 per cent of flyers imagine hearing another passenger's mobile phone calls as the second most annoying thing they could think of on a plane, behind the sounds of children crying and adults snoring.

• Singapore Air receives fifth A380
• Ofcom offers tips on keeping mobile bills down
• United Airlines opens new Chicago O'Hare lounge
• First ever moving skyscraper to be built in Dubai
• American Airlines to test inflight broadband
• Flybe check-in kiosks open at Cardiff Airport
• Stansted improves passenger accessibility
• Mobiles could become 'indispensable' for air travellers
• United Airlines connects to iPod
• Qantas A380 tickets go on sale