While nothing earth shattering, Cathay Pacific has reached a pretty noteworthy milestone this month, which remains surprisingly rare among airlines…
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Cathay Pacific’s inflight entertainment milestone
As of August 2025, Cathay Pacific offers Wi-Fi and seat back entertainment on 100% of its fleet. This includes all Airbus A350s, A330s, and A321neos, as well as all Boeing 777s. Seat back entertainment is nothing new, as that’s something the airline has offered for a long time. It’s Wi-Fi where the progress has been made.
Over the years, we’ve seen the airline progressively install Wi-Fi on all of its aircraft, and that’s a project that’s now complete. This might not sound that exciting — after all, it’s not like the airline offers Starlink Wi-Fi or free connectivity for most passengers.
But still, it’s surprisingly rare for major airlines to offer both types of entertainment with such consistency. Even among the airlines that are usually known for this, there are exceptions. For example, Delta doesn’t have seat back entertainment on its Boeing 717s, Singapore Airlines has some Boeing 737-800s without inflight connectivity, etc.
So anyway, if you board a Cathay Pacific flight, you can know that you’ll have Wi-Fi… well, assuming it’s not inoperable.
Cathay Pacific’s Wi-Fi speeds & pricing
So, what should you expect from Wi-Fi on Cathay Pacific in terms of speeds and pricing? Cathay Pacific offers Intelsat’s 2Ku satellite technology on most of its aircraft, which offers solid speeds, though admittedly it’s not the fastest in the world.
The good news is that there are relatively few geographic gaps in terms of connectivity, which is important, given Hong Kong’s location, since some other services don’t work over China, parts of the Pacific, etc.
When it comes to pricing, Cathay Pacific is pretty consistent. The airline charges the following amounts for Wi-Fi, with no data caps:
- A full flight Wi-Fi pass costs $12.95 on flights of up to six hours, or $19.95-24.95 for flights of over six hours
- A one-hour Wi-Fi pass costs $9.95
- A full flight messaging pass is available for $3.95 on flights of up to six hours, and works for apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, LINE, and WeChat
On top of that, Cathay Pacific first and business class passengers, as well as Diamond members, receive free Wi-Fi with no data caps.
Of course it would be nice if the airline offered free Wi-Fi for all, but given the relatively limited bandwidth, I’m pretty happy with Cathay Pacific’s overall Wi-Fi value proposition (admittedly I usually travel in premium cabins, so do get Wi-Fi included… I guess that makes me biased).
Bottom line
Cathay Pacific now offers high speed Wi-Fi and seat back entertainment on 100% of its fleet. That might not sound that exciting, but it’s pretty rare for an airline to offer both of those things with such consistency. Cathay Pacific has Intelsat’s 2Ku satellite technology on most planes, with good speeds and reasonable pricing (and even free connectivity for premium passengers).
What do you make of Cathay Pacific’s inflight Wi-Fi milestone?
I just flew HKG-TPE on a CX 777 with the regional business class, and I was surprised it did not have WiFi. This was last Friday.
Free WiFi is one of the areas that many top Asian carriers lag on.
Certainly ought to be free for business class passengers at least. Having connectivity on a plane is a real game changer.
Which is why I love EVA’s 30-minute free trial for all passengers, irrespective of cabin. On a recent Taiwan trip, this proved to be a lifesaver, especially as my previous flight on Starlux’s A330neo had no working Wi-Fi whatsoever, and my family was on the verge of calling the airline for my whereabouts!
That said, CX is missing a trick by not offering free messaging for all, and charging $4 for it. CX is a...
Which is why I love EVA’s 30-minute free trial for all passengers, irrespective of cabin. On a recent Taiwan trip, this proved to be a lifesaver, especially as my previous flight on Starlux’s A330neo had no working Wi-Fi whatsoever, and my family was on the verge of calling the airline for my whereabouts!
That said, CX is missing a trick by not offering free messaging for all, and charging $4 for it. CX is a class-leading airline in all other aspects, certainly at the back of the bus, with entertainment that other East Asian airlines like ANA, EVA and JAL simply cannot think of competing with. Free messaging for all is a big missing piece of its jigsaw puzzle, especially as SQ is so far ahead, providing free Wi-Fi in all cabins.
Just imagine you're connected to the internet on VT-CIE.
On the serious note, your family was on the verge of calling the airline for your whereabouts?
Are they stuck in the 60s? Or you're just imagining they know the CEO or the call hold time is 0 minutes and they get a competent person on the line.
Or they're just too cheap to pay for your UM or few dollars for wifi?
Now this is your cue to trash talk KE and their lack of wifi.
VT-CIE? What’s that got to do with anything? But I echo your other comment - surely their family knew what flight they’d be on and would be able to otherwise track it…? I always tell my loved ones whether I expect to have wifi or not but that it’s never a guarantee. Puzzling comment.