ANA is expanding its Wi-Fi options onboard, as it plans to offer free connectivity in business class, whilst looking to to introduce free messaging in other classes on international flights.
The airline will offer its “ANA Wi-Fi Service” as a complementary offering from Summer 2025 onwards for Business class passengers. It will remain free for the airlines’ First Class passengers.
On top of this, ANA will follow other airlines by offering free inflight messaging (text communication) for ANA’s Premium Economy and Economy Class passengers, via ANA’s Wi-Fi Service on international flights. This will be deployed to the fleet by the end of March 2025.
However, there are some exceptions with the deployment:
- Three Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in a 212-seat configuration (without THE Room Business Class seat) – These have a different supplier, with the equipment to be changed at a later date. Once changed, the new offering will be made
- Six Boeing 767-300ER aircraft in a 202-seat configuration. The current in-flight internet service will be suspended on May 31, 2024, due to the withdrawal of the in-flight internet supplier, SITA (via its On-Air product).
In Quotes
Tomoji Ishii, Executive Vice President, Customer Experience Management and Planning of ANA said:
“ANA is dedicated to continuously elevating our customer experience, and the additional Wi-Fi enhancements that will be utilized for personal or business purposes is the latest offering for our passengers,”
“Our ongoing efforts to expand inflight services is to provide our customers with an even more enjoyable and connected experience onboard.”
A chance to evolve
Offering quality connectivity in-flight has become a requirement for a lot of passengers – be they if they need to work, stream entertainment or keep connected to people on the ground. To enable this, ANA has offered connectivity of some sort since 2014.
Offering a free tier for both its premium passengers should offer a positive passenger experience.
Similarly, the cost of transmitting text is minimal, allowing passengers to use text-based communications free at the point of use (and if tied to a frequent flyer account to access, it provides useful data insights for loyalty purposes).
ANA chose to dual-source its connectivity solutions, with them selecting SITA (via its On-Air product) and Pansonic (via Ku-based connectivity). Given that SITA is nearing its market exit, some aircraft will be unserved for some time).
It’ll be interesting which providers ANA will go for – will they choose to single-source, or will they go to other suppliers to provide connectivity?
It’s going to be interesting to watch.
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