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For many air travellers, particularly frequent fliers, the time spent on a plane is a welcome break from a distracting world of e-mails and cellphones. For others, though, spending eight hours or more in a metal tube at 35,000 feet represents a lost workday, a frustrating period of isolation from business colleagues and customers that will have to made up somehow when they land.

These two camps are sure to clash this fall when a handful of airlines introduce in-flight e-mail and cellphone service in a test of both the economic viability and the social acceptability of the otherwise common technologies.

In Europe, where cellphone use is seen as some sort of God-given right - note the European Parliament's extremely popular decision in May to cap roaming charges - the European Aviation Safety Agency cleared the use of GSM telephone equipment aboard aircraft in July.

With that regulatory approval in hand, Air France communications manager for Canada Diane Audet says the airline plans to roll out cellphone service on a short-haul plane in the next few months, adding that it will be done in two phases: three months of text messaging, followed by three months of calls.

Irish discount carrier Ryanair says it will introduce a similar service by the end of the year on its planes.

In China, domestic carrier Shenzhen Airlines has just announced that it will offer cellphone capability on its entire fleet by mid-2009.

Like Air France and Ryanair, it will use technology developed by OnAir, which involves an antenna that runs the length of the airplane.

And Emirates airline, which will launch non-stop service from Toronto to Dubai on Oct. 29, is going ahead with its plans to eventually retrofit its entire fleet with in-flight technology by AeroMobile.

Patrick Brannelly, Emirates' vice-president of passenger communications and visual services, says the demand is there: The airline's passengers currently make about 6,000 calls a month from its seatback phones and that "the added convenience of being able to use one's own device versus the systems already in place at the seat is the main driving force" behind the new service.

Emirates plans to keep the charges in line with international roaming rates, and Brannelly says the airline has already received regulatory approval from 38 countries.

But North American air travellers shouldn't expect to see cellphones on domestic carriers any time soon.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission in the United States recently upheld a ban on in-flight cellphone use, and Transport Canada continues to support a similar ban. Neither U.S. nor Canadian authorities are

convinced that cellphones cannot interfere with a plane's navigation or communication systems.

Transport Canada spokesperson Lucie Vignola says that while safety authorities can regulate and set the frequencies of cellphones and BlackBerrys, that doesn't mean the devices will always operate at those frequencies.

"In Canada, our regulations don't permit the use of any personal electronic devices - your wireless laptops, your cellphones, anything that transmits - because so many of them have different features, use so many different types of technologies. In a lot of cases, they're not properly maintained either. I myself drop my cellphone at least 10 times a day. So even though it's working for me, it is operating at a different frequency than the one it was supposed to," she says.

"So, between all those issues, it's difficult to assess the effect on the aircraft."

Such devices could also cause havoc if an unrelated problem should occur, Vignola says.

"On a plane with 200 people, everyone with their own cellphone ... it can affect the communications between the aircraft, the flight crew and the air traffic control in terms of quality of communications. So if you're in an emergency situation, an emergency landing, you need to make sure that everyone can hear each other clearly. So that's also one of our concerns."

Safety issues aside, Vignola can't imagine how cellphones will ever become acceptable within the cramped confines of a commercial flight.

"With 200 people on an aircraft, even if it's only 10 per cent of people talking on a cellphone, that's 20 people. I know I've experienced it on a bus, a couple of people talking loudly on their cellphones ... At 40,000 feet, I can't imagine how loudly people would be talking on their cellphones."

Etiquette expert Caroline Tiger, author of How to Behave: A Guide to Modern Manners for the Socially Challenged, agrees.

She doesn't see anything wrong with allowing passengers to access their e-mail or text message someone that their plane is going to be late, for instance.

In fact, such services have been available on commercial aircraft in the past, using a now-defunct system called Connexion, developed by aircraft manufacturer Boeing. The services were discontinued simply because not enough air travellers were willing to pay for them, not because they were a nuisance to other passengers.

But cellphones are something completely different, Tiger says.

"People need to be considerate of the comfort of everyone around them, which is why I think cellphone yammering should be kept to an absolute minimum in those kinds of places," she says. "I don't see the need for cellphones on planes at all. I mean, we've gone this long without them."

She adds that discussing business on a crowded airplane wouldn't be very prudent, either.

"I hear plenty of people on Amtrak trains from New York to D.C. or New York to Philadelphia discussing business. People seem to have a false sense of privacy when they're on their phones. You forget just how easily you can hear other people. You are even closer on a plane than any other form of transportation. That's why text messaging or any other form of communication that's inaudible is the way to go."

For its part, Emirates says it will limit the number of cellphone users to six at a time, and the airline's first-class cabins feature private suites with pocket doors that should provide privacy for both cellphone users and other passengers.

Still, there's no denying that allowing cellphones on planes will be controversial, which explains why airlines are introducing them - and the expensive technology to support them - so cautiously.

Still stinging from the Connexion failure, German carrier Lufthansa backed off its plans to allow cellphones after its customers made it clear they were not welcome.

And Air France's Audet says passengers aboard the cellphone-enabled plane will be polled and the results analyzed before the airline retrofits any other planes.

As for Canadian carriers, Transport Canada's Vignola says there's simply no interest in pursuing the matter.

"Passengers aren't asking airlines, and airlines aren't asking us."