jamesbrownontheroad

I have a pair of trans-Atlantic flights on the (relatively) new A321neoLR next week. Can anyone give any recent updates on the quality, speed and bandwidth of the inflight wifi? Are there any blackouts to be expected en route?

Thanks!

Nick Art

I flew on the A350 yesterday, which I believe has a similar WiFi provider. Compared to some of the older A330s, it should be much better. I even managed to get a teams meeting (including video) to run very smoothly for approx. 45 minutes. This should, however, probably not be the expectation in terms of bandwidth. I unfortunately did not run a Speedtest, but I will on Sunday when I fly back from LAX. There are occasional blackouts, I believe the bandwidth and quality might very much depend on the location. The Satellite providers usually have maps of their coverage.

If SAS website is to be believed the A321neoLRs might have even better equipment than the A350s: https://www.flysas.com/us-en/travel-...internet-wifi/

If I remember the Wifi providers are as follows:

Domestic Fleet (A320neos): ViaSat
A321neoLR: ViaSat
A330: Panasonic
SE-REH: ViaSat (same as A321neoLR)
A350: KA Technologies & Inmarsat GX Aviation

PS: The new A330 SE-REH is still awaiting the installation of WiFi...

CPH-Flyer

Still "awaiting" installation. It did not have WiFi when I flew it in October 2021. So if two years later it still does not have WiFi, it is less of awaiting and more of decided not to do anything about it.

Nick Art

I have looked into this a little bit more now and have completed the above information.

The A321neoLRs have the newest ViaSat equipment, performance should be similar or better than on the domestic fleet, while the A350s use a completely different provider, due to the flights to Asia, for which ViaSat does not offer coverage (yet).
The A330s, still have an old Panasonic product, which includes 3G mobile network connectivity, however, the system is quite buggy, appears very broken (successfully logging on results in an error message, despite it working) and in my experience it's not really usable.

Now for A330E SE-REH, a kit from ViaSat was ordered for it together with the one for the A321neoLRs, however, it was so far not installed...
Perhaps we will see the whole A330 fleet get a new (uniform) version of Wi-Fi installed to replace the old Panasonic which is why installation on SE-REH was held off, as the provider might not have been chosen yet?

jamesbrownontheroad

Thanks! I will report back later in the week. It is somewhat important that I have connectivity on SK927 this week (I can't go 8hrs without checking FlyerTalk ) so I will be interested to find out.

jamesbrownontheroad

I’m afraid that my report will have to wait. SK927 was cancelled today (2023-10-18) about an hour before departure.

oliver2002

I doubt any new work is currently in the pipeline. Instead they have probably cancelled all existing contracts to reduce liabilities and cash (out)flow as part of the Ch11 proceedings. Viasat and Panasonic own the equipment installed in the aircraft and revenue share with the carrier. The carrier charges the operator rent for carrying the equipment and the operator in turn charges the carrier for using the network for their own (crew ops, free access for C/elite pax etc).

Installing equipment on a A320 narrowbody takes about 14 days downtime, maybe SAS can do that in the winter break during their C checks at the earliest.

jamesbrownontheroad

Hej from SK928 and SE-DMO, about an hour out from CPH. Here to answer my own question: getting a steady 33mbps download with the wifi. Enough to stream a couple of shows on HBO Max. 👌

FlyingMoose

I think that confirms the ViaSat setup then, similar to what Delta uses domestic.