While Delta has floated the idea of complimentary in-flight wi-fi internet for years, there’s one big roadblock: bandwith. So says Delta CEO Ed Bastian.
Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, Bastian lauded internet availability on Delta and expressed his commitment to make it free for all passengers. Bastian noted that all but the carrier’s smallest regional jets offer internet access, adding:
“I’m a firm believer that we need to make Wi-Fi free across all of our service and we are working towards that.”
So what is the hold up?
“One of the reasons why I say it’s ‘not a good reason’ why we charge for internet’ — you don’t pay for internet practically anywhere else — is that the planes do not have the technical capacity, and capability yet that if we made it free the system would crash. So, once it gets above about a 10% take-rate onboard performance starts to erode…if you turned it on free.”
That’s a fair statement…technological limitations force internet rationing and better that the internet works for some than for none. Bastian added that every time Delta tested free internet on a flight, it crashed.
Delta’s CEO explains why Wifi isn’t better on airplanes https://t.co/7HKHdNyP4Z pic.twitter.com/fF7fvnSUlc
— Bloomberg (@business) December 6, 2019
You can watch the full interview below:
CONCLUSION
It’s not a matter of if, but when. I applaud Delta for already offering superior internet onboard most of its flight and for continuing to express its policy goal of making it free for all. I look forward to thee day I can watch Man in the High Castle or The Crown streaming from my seat at 30,000 feet!
You can watch Man in the High Castle or The Crown on your flight. Netflix and Amazon make it super easy to download onto your device. But I do not think a lot of people are smart enough to plan ahead and download before the flight.
You can download? Seriously?
yes you can download amazon prime and netflix shows to your device ahead of time to watch online
Many, but not all, shows are downloadable.
Where have you been Matt????
I watched the whole new season of Man in the High Castle (which I actually didn’t think was all that good compared to the previous seasons) on JFK-YVR-HKG the other day.
All Amazon and Netflix “originals” can be downloaded without any restrictions, think you have 30 days to watch. Other non owned content can have restrictions due to licenses.
It most certainly boils down to cost right now. Delta has the ability to offer free wifi at a reasonable speed but the cost is a bit outrageous to procure enough bandwidth for their network.
I’d imagine that their strategy for announcing it publicly is to light a fire under all the providers to come up with an economical solution to win the business.
Then how does JetBlue have free WiFi
But JetBlue does it…
I imagine Delta’s first incarnation of free wi-fi will be like JetBlue’s current offering – offer a basic tier that can read news, social media, etc. for free, and a 2nd one that can do a lot more for $.
JetBlue uses ViaSat, which gives each plane much more bandwidth than Gogo. When AA first installed ViaSat IFC, they offered it for free too. Of course AA likes to win the race to the bottom, so they started charging for wifi after they fixed their integration issues with Gogo subscriptions on ViaSat.
Having free message on Delta is already a big step towards the right direction.
Oh please, Jetblue does it fine no problem. So does Qantas. Just an excuse.
His second quote must be the least coherent sentence I’ve ever read. Is that exact or are there typos?
It sounds like he had a stroke.
Norwegian intra-EU as well