The launch follows a trial which finished earlier this year. During 2008, Qantas will start rolling out the service on some domestic B767-300 and A330-200 aircraft. Aussie flyers wanting to use the service will need either a roaming-equipped GSM mobile for texting or a GPRS BlackBerry for email – voice calls aren’t on the cards.

No word again on the pricing or where the service will be used. It’s interesting that Qantas is only offering the service on inter-Australia flights – you’d think that longer haul trips would be more likely to induce the sort of boredom texting relieves. I wonder if it’s a regulatory issue?

According to AeroMobile, it’s the first time that voice calls have been allowed on commercial airline flights, after the European Aviation Safety Agency and the United Arab Emirates-based General Civil Aviation Authority gave the system the thumbs-up.

It looks like AeroMobile and Emirates have really done their research here. There’s a second aircraft coming online soon, so the service isn’t just a one-off, BlackBerry email and other GPRS data applications will be available later on this year and there’s even a politeness policy enforced making sure that passengers keep their mobiles on silent. If Emirates get the pricing right, it could be the testbed that proves demand for in-flight mobility.