Photo Credit:Associated Press
Complimentary onboard Wi-Fi has emerged as the newest competitive arena among the world's top airlines, as this once costly and inconsistent service now offers quality akin to what passengers experience at home. Delta, United, Japan Airlines, Air France and other global carriers have in recent weeks sought to outdo each other with competing announcements about the arrival or extension of onboard connectivity. And in sharp contrast to the growing practice of charging passengers for services that were once included in the ticket price -- such as checking bags or selecting seats -- the airlines are mostly promising that their high-speed wifi is free.
Fabien Pelous, head of client experience at Air France, said the airline's plan to introduce free wifi in 2025 will be a qualitative jump for clients, admitting that the service up to now was not satisfactory We looked at the state of the market, and there are new players, including Starlink, whose latest technologies offer internet quality which is almost equivalent to being at home, Pelous said.
The first experiments began in 2004 with Boeing and Lufthansa, and since then companies such as ViaSat, Panasonic and Thales have developed products that now equip hundreds of planes. Low-orbit satellite constellations such as Starlink were "a game changer", said Seth Miller, owner of PaxEx, a website that covers business travel. Elon Musk's Starlink already outfits planes of Hawaiian Airlines and US domestic carrier JSX. While classic telecommunication satellites orbit as high as 35,000 kilometres from earth, constellation satellites are at just 600 kilometres altitude, greatly reducing latency and allowing for video streaming.
And for the carriers, not just making it free, but also making sure it's a good solution, is sort of the Holy Grail in terms of client satisfaction and loyalty, said PaxEx's Miller. Delta, United and Air France are for now only offering free high-speed wifi to members of their loyalty programmes. Signing up costs nothing, but the wifi offer provides new marketing opportunities.
