Emirates spends millions on rollout of free wi-fi for fleet

Wide-body aircraft will more than double from some 280 today to over 640 by 2033 Airbus says. Photo: Greg Bowker.

Emirates is spending millions of dollars to retrofit its fleet to provide free wi-fi for passengers.

The Dubai-based airline is spending more than US$20 million a year to install and operate inflight connectivity systems, now available on more than 80 aircraft in Emirates' fleet and the airline is looking to roll it out across all its aircraft.

Passengers have, since last October, had the first 10MB of data free on most of Emirates' fleet of more than 50 A380 aircraft.

They then pay a token US$1 for the next 500MB.

Patrick Brannelly, Emirates' vice- president of corporate communications, said wi-fi was introduced on A380s 2 years ago.

"We tried various price points but we weren't happy if only a small percentage of passengers were using this so decided at the beginning of October, 'Let's see what happens when [it is] free'."

Since going free there had been a four-fold increase in wi-fi use with most people using social media sites.

"We can't see what they're doing but the most popular sites are Facebook and WhatsApp."

Streaming big files to passengers' devices was difficult.

"We're some way off technically speaking and cost-wise," he said. "The mathematics of transferring data to an aircraft travelling at 500mph at 40,000ft is pretty tough."

The airline's Airbus A380s use Inmarsat satellites for the service.

Brannelley said personal devices and phones could be used when aircraft reached between 10,000 to 20,000ft.

Airlines need permission to operate any radio equipment in a country's airspace.