This is turning to inflight Wi-Fi day here at OMAAT, quite unintentionally. Earlier I wrote about how Lufthansa has started offering free Wi-Fi in first class, then I wrote about how Etihad has started offering free Wi-Fi in first class. Now I’m having another Wi-Fi ”first,” and I’m digging it… mostly.
Continue reading: My First Shorthaul Lufthansa Flight With Wifi: I Have Mixed Feelings
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
@Lucky - When you do a review of a flight, how about you include a speed test of the wifi (If you buy it).
@Lucky - does the tray table extend from the bulkhead??? Never seen that before
Ben, I am a reader of your blog who is blind. I am writing to tell you that, if you just put a screenshot of your speeds (which I suspect you did in this post), the software I use on my computer that reads aloud the text in your posts cannot read the content of a picture. I ask you to either just put the results in text, or to include both as this would make your content more accessible to people who are blind and visually impaired.
Given Lufthansas high fares on domestic routes, the prices for the wifi are by far too high. German railways are not really slower on most routes (even on some international routes) have a real first class, are much cheaper and Wifi with inflight entertainment is free of charge. Lufthansa is no more an option on my business trips.
Those speeds are perfectly fine, it's the ping (packet turnaround time, i.e. responsiveness) that makes this a bummer. If you had a supersonic jet that needed a 8-hour turnaround time on the ground, a transatlantic flight wouldn't be any faster than what we have now, except the time would be spent differently. That also explains the video situation: it takes a while for your browser to fetch the many needed assets from the server (especially when each one is requested and transferred separately), though once a stream is established, ping no longer matters that much and speeds appear to be fine.
Anyway, there's one European airline that offers (decent) inflight wi-fi, FOR FREE: Norwegian!
Happy to see that you've taken my advice to start using netspeed tests to give us numbers! 🙂
Three or four months ago, China Airlines had free Wi-Fi for premium business class passengers on their 777 and 350 long haul flights. They might offer it once more in the future.
Icelandair has free wifi with a decent speed on all its planes now, I think (not to mention real business class seats)
I agree with Juraj, speeds are decent enough for a wifi during the flight, but PING is horrible. Test it on the ground, at home, in restaurant or other public place and you will see the difference.
Once again, I don't understand LH's business model. Most of their shorthaul flights are really short (below 90mins in the air) and I think most people can still survive without wifi for 90mins. WiFi is way more important on medium- and longhaul flights - and their roll out there is still far from complete ...
Also, given that many pax use their ultra-short flights in order to connect to/from longer flights, I don't understand why they don't offer a 24h subscription, valid on all flights within that time window? Many other airlines make such an offer.
@Mark Chataway
Icelandair business seats are not fit for purpose for long haul flights. They use the same seat whether they fly to England or the US...
Unfortunately you didn’t have a good day on their Intra-Europe WiFi, I’ve had it about 10 times now and all except once it’s been excellent - very fast (seemingly faster than their long haul FlyNet, which I also like) and reliable. Hopefully next time you’ll have a better experience.
Slightly unrelated but the 748 is back on the Seattle route. Is First class coming back?
Emirates is offering a free service on all classes now, only 20Mb I understand which doesn't go far 🙂 but it's good to for messaging etc. Has anyone tried services from iPass, GoGo or CPH Travel WiFi ? They seem to be more of an aggregator of multiple inflight providers so you buy one pass from them and it gives you access to multiple airlines. That would be an ideal service for me as I'm a frequent flyer on different airlines and different routes. Any help / insights would be much appreciated. Thanks