Emirates Airline is planning to offer free Wi-Fi on all its flight
services on international routes. The increasing uptake of the service
and its growing popularity with international travelers has prompted the
airline to give this a serious consideration.
Apart from Emirates, other international carriers such as Delta Air
Lines, United Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Etihad Airways are
already offering Wi-Fi to their restive customers for a fee. The speed
may however be slow on international flights flying over the oceans as
they use a satellite connection to transmit data.
The customers booking flights on Emirates Airline are being currently
provided 10MBs of data free of cost on most of its Boeing 777 and Airbus
A380 aircrafts. The data offered is perceived to be sufficient for
checking emails and other social media accounts. However, those who want
more the airline provides additional 600MBs for a nominal cost of US$1
only.
According to a study in October this year, an average of 3500 passengers
traveling on the Dubai-based carrier made use of the in-flight Wi-Fi
service per day. An average of 28MB of data was used by each passenger,
with the highest number of 153 customers using the service on a single
flight on an Airbus A380 aircraft.
Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline, said that the airline is
already making an investment of US$20 million every year to install and
operate the in-flight Wi-Fi connectivity systems.
Clark hoped that in future the in-flight Wi-Fi service is ultimately
going to become free just like other similar services such as in-flight
entertainment and onboard refreshments that a standard customer usually
expects.