British Airways to roll out Inflight Wifi on
British Airways flights across Europe could have wifi on board from June – with passengers able to check emails, tweet and upload selfies from the cabin. British Airways inflight
The airline’s parent company IAG, which also owns Aer Lingus and Iberia, is introducing new high speed wifi on board selected aircraft this June before rolling it out across 90 per cent of its short haul fleet by 2019.
While on-board wifi is common on long haul flights, and is already offered by carriers including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, it is rare in Europe because the the dense airspace makes connection to satellites patchy.
READ MORE:Â Deloitte predicts 20% increase for in-flight connectivity (IFC)
IAG is the launch customer of the European Aviation Network, a new system that allows airplane antenna to connect to a system of 300 ground towers across Europe as well as satellites.
The system, developed by Inmarsat and Deutsche Telekom, requires far lighter on-board equipment than before.
Airlines that offer free in-flight Wi-Fi
- Emirates
- Qatar Airways
- JetBlue Airways
- Norwegian
- Turkish Airlines
- Air China
- China Eastern
- Nok Air
“Until now, European airlines have been forced to rely on heavy satellite based inflight internet. EAN requires a few very small and light antennas making it also ideally suited for fitting on smaller aircraft that are typically used on European routes.”
The spokesperson, which said the company was in discussions “with all major airlines” about the technology, said it costs hundreds of thousands of pounds to install. (source) British Airways inflight
