Qantas and Virgin to fly-high with Wi-Fi at long last?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 06 September 2011 10:13

Opinion and Analysis

Although US flyers have enjoyed amazingly cheap per-flight Wi-Fi for some years now, Australians have been disgracefully Wi-Fi-Flight-free, although perhaps this will soon change?

Remember back in 2008 when Qantas said it would soon be delivering super-slow GPRS speeds in-flight at international roaming rates?

I bashed Qantas for its lack of vision back then, especially when its US competitors were offering fast in-flight Wi-Fi speeds at prices between US $9.95 and $12.95 per flight.

Fast forward to more than half-way through 2011, and Australia's visionary airlines have been decidedly visionless on the subject of delivering Wi-Fi to Australian skies, with Qantas never even bothering to deliver on its mega-slow, mega-expensive GPRS nonsense in all that time.

Sure, there are those that don't want a bar of it - they don't want people using Skype in the next seat to chat to people, or they don't want to be connected to the office even though they're thousands of kilometres up in the sky.

But for those that DO want to stay connected, an actually affordable in-flight Wi-Fi option for Australian skies seems to be a dream, instead of a reality.

Now comes news that Virgin Australia is thinking of using Wi-Fi for in-flight streaming, which sounds ridiculous, instead of delivering it to passengers for use on their computers and devices, with Qantas making noises about offering Wi-Fi in-flight, too.

Sadly the noises don't yet equate to actual services you can purchase in-flight, nor do they give us any confidence that either airline will price its Wi-Fi services at realistic and affordable prices.

However it has been years now since Qantas' first lacklustre and really rather shameful attempt at a plan to scam customers with sky-high international roaming rates and ultra slow GPRS speeds which would only have kept Blackberry email addicts happy.

So'¦ Qantas and Virgin'¦ can both of you please stop faffing around and please start popping the in-flight Wi-Fi cherry'¦ and then deliver the damn service at a price comparable to US airlines, instead of some ridiculously high price aimed at the wallets of the Chairman's Club set?

 

Thanks.