Qantas unveils plan to offer free Wi-Fi on international routes

The airline says it is taking advantage of an inflection point in global satellite communications, which means it can now offer Wi-Fi on international flights.

A radome that houses a Wi-Fi antenna is installed on a Qantas aircraft.

Qantas is breaking the last bastion of disconnectedness: offering free Wi-Fi on international flights – and says there is a reason why it has taken so long to catch up to its rivals.

The airline says it will extend its ‘fast and free’ Wi-Fi – which it launched domestically in 2016 – to international flights from the end of this year.

Qantas executive manager for product and service, Phil Capps, said passengers on routes to Asia will be the first to experience an internet connection, followed by trans-Tasman and Pacific flights before it is offered on trips to Europe towards the latter half of 2026.

Mr Capps said Qantas has struck a partnership with global broadband services provider Viasat, which has made fast and free Wi-Fi feasible on all routes – even those to South Africa which fly south towards Antarctica where internet is typically unavailable.

“We’ve set a really strong benchmark with our domestic Wi-Fi offering. We didn’t want to go out strong with international Wi-Fi until we were comfortable that we could meet a comparable benchmark,” he said.

“Now, various circumstances have put us in a position where we’re comfortable with that.”

Specifically, Mr Capps said it was California-based Viasat’s $US7.3bn ($11.34bn) merger with British satellite company Inmarsat last year that has meant Qantas can offer uninterrupted broadband on all routes.

Inmarsat and Viasat rely on what is called a geostationary-orbit network of satellites, which orbit the earth at the same rate as the globe rotates. Such a network requires fewer satellites, at a higher orbit, to provide global coverage.

“Post their merger with Inmarsat, we’ve got this great redundancy, doubling up, of satellite infrastructure around the globe. So you’ve got improving satellite technology and coverage, progressively growing and being reinforced,” Mr Capps said.

“So now is the really good inflection point for us to invest in Wi-Fi.”

Qantas is currently installing Wi-Fi on its international fleet of aircraft, with a launch date scheduled for the end of this year.

Another reason for the delay is the task of retrofitting aircraft, with A380 planes more challenging than newer Boeing 787 Dreamliners – the design of which was overseen by Australian David Carbon, who has since left Boeing to head Amazon Prime Air.

“When we acquired the A380s, it was before 2010, the available on-air infrastructure was quite limited, so the work that’s involved in us now taking an A380 and fitting it with the latest gen Wi-Fi is considerably bigger,” Mr Capps said.

“You have to essentially put a hole in the roof of the aircraft to install the radome and antenna to create that Wi-Fi environment. There was some provisioning on the A380, but it was limited. In contrast, on the 787s, because that’s a much later acquisition of the fleet, we provision the aircraft hull itself with enough infrastructure so at a later time when we wanted to put Wi-Fi in, we were somewhat complete.”

Qantas executive manager for product and service Phil Capps.

New aircraft currently on order, including A350 and B787 fleets, will be Wi-Fi capable when delivered.

While rivals have offered different Wi-Fi bundles for passenger travel classes – or offer a free service for text messages and paid packs for web browsing and streaming – Mr Capps said Qantas intended to offer its Wi-Fi service for free.

He said this was largely because of consumer demand and to maintain a competitive advantage.

“We’ve seen Wi-Fi for our customers on domestic flights just being part of the everyday, so it’s a fundamental expectation that it will be there and that they will use it in all sorts of diverse ways.

“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. That remains true, but with the improving capability of the Wi-Fi systems, now we’re seeing this real growth in the use of Wi-Fi domestically.

“Web browsing is now generally 38 per cent of the activity. We’re seeing at least a quarter of customers now using domestic Wi-Fi to stream video, we’re seeing between 15 and 20 per cent of our domestic customers use Wi-Fi for audio streaming as well. So this shows that the expectation for Wi-Fi among our domestic travellers is not just for business but very much for leisure too.”

Viasat vice president of commercial aviation Don Buchman: “We applaud Qantas’ commitment to prioritising Wi-Fi and the digital experiences it can provide – from live TV and sports to social media and streaming – not just today but looking to the future”.

“We are excited to partner with Qantas to continue to scale this experience, bringing the same exceptional and reliable connectivity to its international fleet,” Mr Buchman said.

As for ending what some call disconnected bliss on a plane, Mr Capps said they were now part of a shrinking group.

“It used to be that some people wanted the flight experience to be always connected and others wanted that to be immunised from connection. That has fundamentally changed. The basic expectation of travellers in Australia is they want to be connected all throughout the day, and we can see that in our usage.”

Originally published as Qantas unveils plan to offer free Wi-Fi on international routes