Qantas announces free Wi-Fi for international flights

Qantas has announced plans to offer "Fast and Free" Wi-Fi for international travellers.

A long-haul international flight has often been a time to watch several movies back-to-back, read books, eat and nap.

In other words, it’s been a period we go without the internet or cell service for hours on end, unless you pay for a Wi-Fi bundle.

However, this is changing as more airlines begin offering free Wi-Fi on international flights. The latest to make the offering? Qantas.

The Australian airline announced that by the end of 2024, international travellers will have access to its “fast and free” Wi-Fi. Currently, the service is only available for domestic travellers.

Travellers flying to Asia will be prioritised and will be the first group to receive free Wi-Fi on flights, followed by transtasman and Pacific flights. If you’re heading to Europe, the airline said you’ll have to wait until the end of 2026.

Qantas has had its eye on offering free Wi-Fi on international flights for a while but chose to defer the service until it knew it could deliver the high-quality internet travellers are used to.

Then Qantas partnered with Viasat, a global broadband services provider, and began retrofitting its fleet with the company’s in-flight connectivity system.

Qantas’ executive manager for product and service, Phil Capps, said they waited to roll out free Wi-Fi on international flights until they knew the connectivity would be similar to the quality passengers get on domestic flights, The Australian reported.

Capps told The Australian the airline did not want to premiere its free international Wi-Fi until it felt the connectivity could match that offered on domestic flights.

However, offering free Wi-Fi appeared to be not an ‘if’ but a ‘when’, as people increasingly expect the ability to stay connected at all times.

Capps said offering free connection rather than making economy-class travellers pay for Wi-Fi was both a way to stay competitive against other airlines and a response to the shifting expectations of consumers.

“When we first put it on, it was just a means of keeping connected, very much so for business-purpose travellers who might be going from Sydney to Melbourne for the day, and they might be completing presentations or other work,” he said.

As we all know, today, many travellers wish to maintain an internet connection during flights but it has little to do with completing work or presentations.

On domestic Qantas flights, 38 per cent of customers’ Wi-Fi activitiy is related to surfing the web, 25 per cent is for streaming videos and 15-20 per cent for audio streaming such as Spotify, Capps said.

Air New Zealand already offers free Wi-Fi on certain aircraft during flights to Australia, the Pacific islands and on the domestic network.

The airline is extending the Wi-Fi technology “plane by plane” and customers are encouraged to check if their flight will have free Wi-Fi.

However, access to the internet doesn’t necessarily mean you should use it for whatever you wish, as some critics have argued.