For a few months now, Air France has been testing in-flight data and cell-phone service on one of its planes. (I flew on one of the cell-phones-allowed flights and wrote about it in my Well-Mannered Traveler column on MSNBC.com.)

Now comes word that passengers on at least one TAP Portugal plane can send and receive e-mail and make flying phone calls as well. The airline has equipped a single Airbus A319 aircraft with the Mobile OnAir service and will test that service for six months.

On the test plane – and perhaps eventually on all TAP Portugal flights across Europe – passengers can use BlackBerry-type devices and mobile phones to send and receive emails and text messages, and to make and receive voice calls.

New European Union (EU) rules make it likely that travelers will be able to place cell phone calls on flights in EU airspace as soon as this summer. Air France is already testing such a service on one “cell-phones-allowed” plane that I got to fly on yesterday between Paris and Geneva.

Technically, the service isn’t quite ready-for-prime-time, but passengers I spoke with were just fine with that. “No way do I want to listen to someone talking on their cell phone next to me on a plane,” one man told me, “I hope this never gets going.”

Will in-flight cell-phone service be offered in the United States anytime soon? Not if some lawmakers have their way. Read about their plan to ban in-flight cell-phone service forever in my Well-Mannered Traveler column on MSNBC.com.