Business travellers would starve for WiFi

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 28 May 2009 16:40

IT Industry - Strategy

Forty seven percent of respondents to a survey of business travellers have listed WiFi Internet access as the most important airport amenity, putting this ahead of basic amenities such as food by nearly 30 percentage points.

The survey was sponsored by HP and was conducted online with more than 1,500 frequent travellers who log more than 20 trips a year on three or more airlines. More than 90 percent of these frequent travellers travelled with notebook or mobile phone to hand and 70.5 percent said they would use their notebooks in flight if WiFi Internet access were available. Mobile phones (with telephony turned off) came in a distant second at 19.8 percent.

Eighty-five percent of respondents said they conducted work-related activities at the airport, but this number drops to 52.6 percent onboard a flight. Twenty-four percent said access to electrical power is the most important technology amenity aboard a plane. A combined 67.7 percent of frequent travellers surveyed said a dead battery (41.4 percent) and no place to plug in (26.3 percent) were their largest complaints.