Dubai: Emirates airline said on Tuesday it is spending $20 million (Dh73.4 million) a year as its rolls out wi-fi services across its fleet and will move to one day make the service available to passengers for free.
“Ultimately, we believe that on-board wi-fi will become a free service and a standard that customers will expect on a full-service airline,” said Tim Clark, president of Emirates airline, in the statement. The Middle East’s largest passenger airline currently offers wi-fi on its 53 Airbus A380s and on 28 Boeing 777s.
In October, the airline recorded a 200 per cent surge in wi-fi usage compared to the same month a year earlier. Through October the daily average was 3,500 passengers using on-board wi-fi services at an average of 28 megabytes (MB) per user, the airline said.
On-board wi-fi is likely to one day be an industry norm, according to Will Horton, senior analyst at CAPA – Centre for Aviation. He added that Emirates is looking to keep itself ahead of the competition with Tuesday’s statement, “even with larger challenges and costs than if they waited.”
Emirates said that on most of its flights equipped with wi-fi, the first 10MB is offered to passengers free of charge. A $1 charge is levied for the next 600MB.
Emirates did not state when the wi-fi fleet rollout would be complete or when it plans to offer the service free of charge. However, the airline did say that it subsidises some of the costs and has an “aggressive retrofit programme” to make the service available.
A roll-out of wi-fi services across the airline’s fleet can also improve the carrier’s operations alongside its appeal among travellers.
“Wi-fi also enables crew functions that bring efficiency [and] that helps underwrite the cost,” Horton said. “Perhaps that’s transmitting more detailed maintenance information for the layover, a request for a customer or rebooking for a passenger with a schedule disruption.”
However, the use of on-board wi-fi is currently subject to the countries the airline flies over. According to the airline’s website, its wi-fi services “may not be available over a number of countries including China, India and the US.”
