It seems the airline business is finally taking off when it comes to surfing the net with BA, the UK’s national airline announcing it will soon be providing on board wifi services. BA passengers get sky high wifi through BA teaming up with British satellite specialist Inmarsat to deliver super fast broadband at 38,000 feet.
Initially launching on UK domestic services, BA fully intends to roll out the service across its European network not too long after, making the airline the very first in Europe to be able to offer passengers an online service.
Inmarsat will be investing over £250M on the project which includes constructing and launching a new S band satellite named Europasat to deliver the band width by 2016.
Commenting on this new project, Inmarsat’s Chief executive Rupert Pearce said:
“A number of European airlines are aligned with this vision and we are absolutely delighted to announce advanced discussions with British Airways to be a launch customer on our new aviation network.”
“The ability to deploy terrestrial technology to serve aeroplanes gives you dramatic capacity.“The whole plane can get out their device and start furiously using the internet. We’ve seen American consumers taking to the GoGo experience in droves – they love being connected on aircraft.”
The USA GOGO service costs around £10 for a card with 24 hour access.
Kate Thornton, head of product and service at British Airways, commented: “British Airways is in discussions with Inmarsat about leading Europe in a new era of broadband in the air. Starting with UK domestic routes Inmarsat intends to deploy Europe’s first ground-based 4G broadband network giving our customers the internet access they expect on the ground while in the air.”
