Thursday, February 27, 2014

ANA to offer in-flight Wi-Fi for international from March.

All Nippon Airways (NH/ANA) will commence in-flight Wi-Fi service on selected international routes on selected days from March 1st. Branded 'ANA WiFi Service', it is aimed at use with smartphones and tablet computers.
Boeing 767-381/ER(WL) JA623A awaits its next international flight at Haneda. (Photo: Ryosuke Yano)

An initial fleet of two Boeing 777-300ERs and one B767-300ER will be equipped with the service, and will gradually be expanded to all 19 B777-300ERs and nine B767-300ERs by the end of fiscal year 2014. B787 Dreamliners are not planned for the time being as their fuselage is made from composites. Passengers would be able to surf the web, check e-mail, and update their social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and LINE, but the service is not suited for personal laptop computers or YouTube downloading. Prices range depending on bandwidth; 6 USD for 5 megabytes, 12 USD for 10 megabytes, and 24 USD for 20 megabytes.
Passengers can look out for this logo on the airplane. (Image: ANA)

ANA's in-flight Wi-Fi will be provided by SITA subsidiary OnAir, formerly a joint-venture with Airbus. Original plans were to launch the service in summer 2013, however, unsatisfactory connection quality led ANA to wait for improvement. Meanwhile, rival Japan Airlines (JL/JAL) has already been offering in-flight Wi-Fi on international routes from July 2012 with Panasonic Avionics' 'eXConnect' product, and service on domestic flights will start from July this year with Gogo as provider.

Source: All Nippon Airways, February 26th. (in Japanese)

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