Cathay Pacific Airways today launched its official i-mode site in Japan. NTT DoCoMo i-mode subscribers will now be able to access the airline`s Arrival and Departure information, Flight Schedules, notiFLY Flight Paging, Marco Polo Club information, promotional offers, and local contact numbers. Cathay Pacific is the first foreign airline in Japan to offer i-mode flight schedules in both English and Japanese. Unlike most other sites, Cathay Pacific`s i-mode site offers most other content in both languages.
NTT DoCoMo`s i-mode is one of the world`s most successful mobile phone services offering wireless web browsing as well as email. It was introduced in Japan in February 1999, and now has over 25 million users. The i-mode sites are divided into two basic groups: official, and unofficial. As an official i-mode site, the Cathay Pacific service will appear automatically on the i-Menu of every i-mode mobile phone.

Cathay Pacific will soon also launch its official site on the other two main Japanese mobile platforms, namely J-Phone`s J-Sky and KDDI`s EZweb. This will make Cathay Pacific the first foreign airline to have “official” status on all three mobile platforms in Japan, offering access to over 40 million subscribers.

Official sites must be officially checked and approved by the mobile service provider. The official sites are usually sorted into one of the following categories: Travel, Tickets and Lifestyle, News & Information, Mobile Banking, Charge cards, Stocks and Insurance, Gourmet, Entertainment, Town information and Dictionaries and Tools.

Tom Nunan Cathay Pacific Manager e-Business said: “We are delighted to become the first foreign airline to launch official sites on all three Japanese mobile platforms. The travel tools we are providing will be valuable to our passengers in Japan and I`m sure the new i-mode service will prove very popular.”

Unlike a traditional mobile phone the i-mode service is not charged by the minute but instead by the volume of data transmitted. This means that users can stay connected to a Website for hours at no additional cost provided no new data is sent or received. The i-mode service is most popular among users aged between 24 to 35 years of age. The Cathay Pacific i-mode site can be accessed directly from the i-Menu of i-mode phones, or via www.cathaypacific.com/jphome.
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