Pack your phone but go on hold

Passengers may soon be able to use cellphones and personal digital assistants on flights - but not for making calls, texting, surfing the internet or sending and receiving emails.

All airlines in New Zealand have been given the go-ahead by the Civil Aviation Authority to allow phones on "flight" or "safe" modes, after Air New Zealand applied for an exemption to a ban on cellphones last year.

Air New Zealand is reviewing its current blanket ban on cellphone use in light of the decision, and the exemption will also allow Qantas to reinstate cellphone use again.

Qantas allowed passengers in New Zealand to use cellphones since August last year, in line with its policy in Australia. However, the CAA stopped the practice in November, because Qantas had no exemption here.

Flight or safe mode blocks any transmission to and from the phone, but allows people to use features such as games and cameras, listen to music or watch video downloads, and check personal diaries and existing e-mails.

CAA spokesman Bill Sommer said the exemption was granted because "the cellphone is basically not being used as a cellphone".

"People still can't use a cellphone operating as a phone under the rules. But if you can switch it to flight mode so it can't transmit or receive, then you can use it as a hand-held computer."

He said it put the devices in the same league as others such as laptops and iPods, all of which had to be switched off during take-off and landing.

It was up to individual airlines whether to make use of the exemption in its policies, and some may opt out because of the need to check if cellphones were in the right mode, which could raise issues of enforcement.

Telecommunications company spokespeople said flight modes were mostly available on "medium to high end" cellphones and personal digital assistants, such as Telecom's Apache, Vodafone's BlackBerry and i-Mate Windows Mobile 5.0 devices.

Telecom said its other flight mode phones and devices included all Sanyos (4920, 7400, 2300, 8300, 5600, 9000,) the LG 225, and Palm Treo 650.

The exemption brings New Zealand in line with Australia and America, where similar rules apply.

Mr Sommer said no country had yet allowed transmitting devices on commercial flights.