Any progress on WiFi rollout?
 

A few months ago there was a big splash - in the tech press as much as the aviation press - about BA rolling out onboard WiFi on transatlantic routes. No dates were mentioned, of course, but it was reported as a firm decision and contracts signed etc, not just another pilot project or testing of the waters. The tech described sounded off-the-shelf and ready for deployment in a relatively short time frame.

I'm wondering if there has been any progress with this? I have an F flight on an A380 this weekend - am I likely to encounter onboard WiFi?

I believe someone said it won't be until next year...

Lol. No.

Starting 2018 I believe. Certainly not this weekend!

Just another example of the BA J product being out of date and inferior to the AA offering. I believe AA are even starting live tv now on some planes, whilst BA still seem to be 18 months away from even having wifi :rolleyes:

The class of travel isn't relevant to whether wifi is installed on an aircraft or not...

Wow. Okay. Some of the original reports I read made it sound like they were going to start rolling out this summer, but I guess that's not the case. Or maybe they will be installing the kit as planes go in for scheduled maintenance, but won't turn it on until most or all of the fleet is equipped. Either way this is disappointing. Onboard WiFi is hardly new or rare technology.

True, but business class passengers are much more likely to want & require it. And they're the ones paying big money to travel on that airline too

The current offerings from most airlines aren't up to much though are they

BA has probably won in the long term by adopting a little later

I thought I read 2017 roll out and 2019 for the whole (or vast majority) fleet, that does seem far too long away though.

Gogo is pretty poor (continental US wifi) but the TATL on AA is pretty good. I've been able to consistently get about 2Mbps download speed. Fast enough for video calls, streaming, etc. Latency is a little too slow for VNC.

As the previous poster mentioned, IAG selected Gogo as their primary provider for inflight wifi (Gogo's new 2Ku satellite-based product, not the cellular-type air-to-ground technology that AA currently uses on US domestic flights).

Gogo just started rolling out 2Ku installations in full scale over the last few months and has a huge backlog of signed agreements to equip aircraft but yet uninstalled (roughly 1,200 aircraft in queue). The target is ~75 installations by end of 2016, and another 350+ in 2017...but these are across airline customers and not just IAG/BA. Since BA is a small subset, the odds of getting a wifi-equipped BA flight in the next 6-9 months is quite slim.

Just been on an AA transcon which charged $40 for gogo wifi for the duration of the flight.
If BA price similarly it'll be pointless to me!

Was the $16 day pass for 24hrs on one airline not offered?

https://www.gogoair.com/list-all-products (below the subcriptions).

Don't agree. There are plenty of Y travellers who spend big chunks of time online - twitter, Instagram, facebook etc.

I think you need to book this before the flight to get that price.