Is the thing which looks like a telephone (when you enter the cockpit just in front of you) really a..........

Question

....... telephone, and if yes, could you phone there everywhere, or what is the purpose of it?

Answer 1

On commercial airliners, 99% of the time if it looks like a telephone, it isn't! Instead it is a handset unit that allows inflight communication between the flight attendant stations and the flight deck. It can also be used for making PA announcements to the passengers, although most aircraft have functions that allow the pilots to do this without picking up the handset (instead they talk through the headset they wear and communicate with ATC over).

That said, some airliners and other aircraft (corporate/private) do have air to ground phones that can be used by the flight crew. The phone that I currently have on my aircraft (a private corporate jet) has two receivers- one in the cabin and one in the flight deck ceiling. We can use it to make calls from the airplane to the ground, as well as to other planes in the air (with the appropriate calling codes of course!)

Our phone is a satellite phone, and works anywhere in the US, Canada and Mexico. If we paid for a higher service plan, we could get worldwide coverage.

Answer 2

No the aircrafts internal comms system, used to communicate with the flight attendants and for making announcements to passengers

Answer 3

It's used to address the passengers and to talk with the flight attendants (who in turn have their own phones).