This week we have heard horror stories in the news from those who forgot to switch on flight mode. One story explained that a passenger forgot to switch her phone to flight mode before stowing it in her hand luggage for the flight, she received a bill that was twice the price of her transatlantic airfare! The passenger was horrified, particularly as she had not touched her mobile phone during the flight.
As the old adage goes “prevention is better than cure” so we wanted to explain way this happens and how to prevent it. A critical point to understand is that utilising air and sea satellite services whilst travelling differs from conventional roaming.
Below are some key points worth bearing in mind before you travel:
- Mobile devices can connect automatically to some satellite network services where the service is made available via air and maritime travel companies.
- If the mobile device is not switched off, or placed in flight mode, applications can continue to update and run in the background. The result is that data services are used even if the device is stored away.
- Roaming spend on satellite roaming services is not considered the same as mobile network roaming and is therefore not included within your standard roaming bundles or services. In addition, out of bundle costs are significantly higher than standard roaming costs by destinations within set world zones.
In conclusion, it really is important to switch to flight mode or switch your phone off!
