Singapore Airlines, from July 1 free internet on board for everyone (even those flying economy)
Onboard wi-fi on airplanes is increasingly a reason people choose a company over [...]
Singapore Airlines
Star Alliance
Onboard wi-fi on airplanes is increasingly a reason people choose an airline rather than the other. If I'm going to fly long-haul, I always try to opt for companies that guarantee me that there will be wi-fi on board, although then it can always happen that for some reason the plane with the connection will be left in the dark. In the last 24 months we have seen a real boom, with companies that have put a lot of emphasis on in-flight connectivity and others that have been dormant.
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In recent months I have been flying aboard some carriers where I recorded better performance even at certain ADSL lines, but other times I suffered worse than with a 56k. The new thing these days is called Starlink, Elon Musk's satellites have been adopted by several carriers, most recently Air Baltic To provide connection to passengers.
Singapore Airlines from July 1 free wi-fi for all
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We're not talking about messaging, and it's not even a red herring to make passengers think they can use the free connection only to discover ridiculous bandwidth limits later: the news is that as of July 1, 2023, the Asian carrier will give away unlimited connection to all passengers, including those traveling in economy. There is one condition: be enrolled in the Krisflyer program.
Onboard wi-fi connection throughout Singapore Airlines' long-haul fleet is guaranteed at 100%. It doesn't matter whether you fly on the A350 from Singapore to Italy or the A380, which unfortunately only flies to London in Europe at the moment. All planes offer in-flight service.
Wi-fi is also present on almost the entire short- to medium-haul fleet. In fact, to date only the few, old, 737/800 used only for flights to Phuket and Kuala Lumpur do not have wi-fi, all others do.
More and more carriers are offering free Wi-fi
Again, as in the operation done by Delta, the key to getting free connection on board is membership in the loyalty program. Translated: give me your data, in return I'll let you sail.Â
I have yet to fly on an airplane where 300 passengers are simultaneously connected, but I think the problem will be surfing speed. Of course, so many users probably means little bandwidth for everyone, however, it is also true that not everyone will be on Netflix downloading a video, so performance should not be so bad.
In conclusion
Free Wi-fi with no time or traffic limit, just writing this makes me happy. Hopefully, other carriers will also decide to copy Singapore and Delta and this will become a standard as soon as possible.