side note, if u both have wireless cards that support low power modes, or manual adjustment of the output levels (most orinoco clones like dell ones do) then set them to lowest and work your way up till you make a good signal,

AND a cell phone is stronger than a WiFi card, plus the freq that 802.11b/g uses is a consumer freq so there would definately not be anything on a plane that it would affect, a cell phone would be worse, and tests show that cellphones dont pose a problem