[henrikeh]

Cell phone cells are (ideally) shaped to account for the expected pattern of how handover will occur. Along roads and train lines, the cells are (at least in GSM) supposed to be tailored to allow for easy routing and handover as the devices travels in the direction of the way.

While I have never read anything concretely analyzing the handover pattern of devices on airplanes, I would expect that since a very large number of cells are almost equally visible/equal signal strength, the network would have to frequently handover the device from one cell to another.

The handover process is, for voice traffic, very resource intense. (in GSM) it involves duplication of traffic to the neighboring cell and a lot of coordination.

I think that could be the reason for why mobile operators find airplane-borne devices annoying.