Replace “being on a plane” with “being outside of the house” and you’re describing the 1980s. I’d happily give wireless everything back.

Give me my London A-Z back! A

As a kid I did something geeky that no one would need today. A compressed timetable for the train for common times of day that fits inside my wallet. For example if all day the train is 24 and 54 past the hour that is a single row.

No need for that when google maps or a trip planning app can tell you

Well, when I fly my work makes me get the cheapest possible ticket and doesn’t pay for extras like wifi.

Looks like this offering is free for all classes. United has also announced they'll be equipping their entire fleet with Starlink and it will be free for all classes as well.

Still, when I'm traveling I set the expectation that I'm only sporadically available. Not that different from normal life, actually (especially outside of working hours).

I'm confused by that move - why make it free when they could easily charge their captive audience for it? What's the next step after this one?

> I'm confused by that move - why make it free when they could easily charge their captive audience for it?

My understanding is that it's actually a condition of using Starlink for commercial aviation. Every other airline that's announcing a partnership with Starlink is also providing it for free to customers.

IMO, it's a way for Starlink to put pressure on other satellite internet providers. The utilization of free wifi will be way higher than paid wifi. And the other networks - be it OneWeb, Viasat, Hughesnet, etc. don't have as much available bandwidth.

Next step is of course stop paying studios for movie licenses. Bring your own device and watch your own content, in 480p - bandwidth for full HD/4k is, naturally, extra.

Ultimately they might get away with ripping out the whole entertainment system out of the plane altogether for another .1% increase in efficiency.

Starlink doesn't seem to offer that much bandwidth.

they have a scarce resource - sounds like a perfect opportunity to make some money by selling it!

It's enough if you shape traffic appropriately

...and once they have ripped out the entertainment systems, then they will start charging for the internet connection again!

Strangely enough, I saw a promo on my United flight the other day that their latest cabin refreshes feature screens in every seatback. I thought airlines were going in the other direction.

Hook. And imagine the targeted ad revenue - where else do you have people with different spending powers strapped to a seat with nowhere to go? You have already given the flight operator your verified identification. Amazing new opportunity for data resellers.

making it free adds competitive pressure - other airlines might not have the available float to start adding it to theirs. This makes qatar airlines better, and thus attract more customers.

I think I was flying with an active internet connection somewhere around 2012 (A380). So it's been like that for a good while.

For me, reliable internet on a flight turns work travel into billable hours.

Soon you’ll have to pay extra for that. “Introducing Faraday Cage Class…”

Just say WiFi was broken.

Given the reality of the Israeli pager attack using explosives planted in electronic devices, I wonder how safe anyone should feel flying on planes these days. Is airport security going to even allow electronic devices on planes in the future because of that event? What happens if a hole is blown in a pressurized cabin by such means? Supply chains are now pretty globalized and malicious actions can take place at many points in those supply chain.

Losing pressurization even suddenly isn't a huge deal by itself. The masks will drop and the plane will go to below 10000 feet but it's unlikely to cause it to crash. There's not enough explosives in the pager bombs to cause catastrophic damage to the airframe or controls.

As a side note it's unclear if it would even trigger in the air because afaik the trigger was immediate when the signal was sent and the pagers shouldn't have signal at altitude just like a cell phone.

There are other ways to trigger it, e.x. barometric pressure