China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines became the first Chinese airline, Jan 17th, to let passengers use mobile phones in flight mode. This follows relaxation by CAAC of a longstanding rule prohibiting mobile phones to be turned on at all in aircraft. Now they can, in flight mode, if the airline allows it. Hainan Airlines has further taken advantage of the change to begin providing an inflight wireless internet service. The old rule was rarely understood by those airline customers who had freely used phones in flight mode on foreign carriers. It was apparently based on assumptions by the CAAC that passengers could not be trusted to activate the flight-mode function and that cabin attendants could not practicably ensure that passengers had activated the mode. <br/>