Originally Posted by
13901
As an aside, and hopefully the OP won't mind the hijacking attempt... But am I the only one who just 'doesn't get' the case for on-board WiFi on a plane? As an user?
I do understand the need for wifi on merchant vessels, on offshore, on places where people are away for long periods of time. But on a flight of 12 hours... I just don't see it. I tried using it for work, on various airlines, and gave up. It's just too much of a hassle when everything is cloud-based and requiring MFA. I remember once trying spinning a Citrix virtual machine on a plane. .
I agree that CITRIX is a stretch too far on airline WIFI and I'm so glad that I never ever need to use CITIRIX again in my life. Mind you given what gets put onto WhatsApp by Secretaries of State in various degress of sobriety, I must admit I wonder what was the point of spending 35 plus years of trying to maintain the security of HMG's information. Authenticator works well on BA's wifi even though some of my younger colleagues seem to regard it as a form of torture. But that apart, Wifi on aircraft is absolutely fantastic! It makes flights pass so quickly and all sort of things you never get the time to sort out can be dealt with, and before you know it you are landing. Plus Flyertalk of course. I would guess the number of FT posts I've made from BA's wifi must now run into thousands. I can well imagine that if you are in WT or (e.g..) a defective seat, Wifi really helps to give a more pleasant experience. But yes the failure rate on BA's wifi is much higher than I would like, yes it's unrealistic over the North Pole, relying on availability isn't sensible. I just get the impression that BA doesn't really try to make wifi more reliable, compared to USA airlines, and thus is throwing their investment away.
For the OP's post about the crew not knowing what the onboard food is: yes it would be better to have menus even in WT somehow or other, but I was under the impression the food options are mentioned in the pre-flight briefing, so they should have been aware by the time the initial drinks run was done.