We live practically surrounded by the Internet everywhere. We have access to the network at home, at work, when we go down the street, on a bus… However, there is one place where it is still very limited or impossible in many cases: when taking a flight. In this article we are going to talk about how much it costs contract internet when flying And what limitations does it have?
Price of contracting Internet on a flight
Having Internet today during a flight is something quite limited. It is not easy for the airlines, nor is it cheap. That makes it unusual for them to offer this service for free and you have to pay for it. Even not on all routes, nor all companies, we will be able to do it.
One of the few airlines that offer free internet is Norwegian. At RedesZone we were able to test it on a Madrid-Reykjavík flight and we can say that the connection worked throughout the journey, although logically the speed is very limited; this is something that will happen whether you pay or if it is free. For WhatsApp, check the mail or enter a website, without problems.
The vast majority of airlines do charge for having Internet on the flight. Some offer a bonus if you travel in Bussineses, such as Air Europe, but it is 10 MB and that logically lasts a short time. With that same company you can pay from €2 to €10 (depending on whether the flight lasts less than 2 hours, from 2 to 8 or more than 8) to have WhatsApp. Also other basic navigation bonuses that range from €5 to €25 and other more complete ones, for example, to be able to listen to music for between €12 and €35.
Iberia offers something similar. You can pay messaging vouchers to use WhatsApp for €3.49 for one hour or pay up to €5.99 to be able to use it throughout the flight. To surf the Internet it goes from €5.99 an hour to €24.99 for the entire flight. However, this is not something that is available on all routes.
With fly emirates, an airline that is growing a lot in number of flights and routes with Spain, we can also hire Internet. In this case, having access to WhatsApp costs between €3 and €6 depending on the duration of the flight. Being able to navigate costs between 10 and 20 euros.
Therefore, as you have seen, having Internet during a flight costs around €5 on average to have WhatsApp and from €10 to browse. Normally you will find yourself with a limit of time or MB that you will be able to download.
Limits on the connection on flights
The main problem is the connection limit during a flight. We are not only talking about the time we can browse or the amount of data we can download, but about the speed. It is a really limited connection and you have to take into account that there are many passengers that can be on a flight.
The airlines themselves limit Internet access to prevent someone from consuming a lot bandwidth. For example, it could affect a lot if someone played YouTube videos in high quality. That is why in many bonuses that you can hire to fly they do not include anything beyond WhatsApp and web browsing or, at most, being able to play audio and almost never Streaming videos. You can always use tricks to prevent the Wi-Fi bonus from being consumed on a flight.
It is to be hoped that in a few years availability will be greater and being able to use the Internet during a flight will be commonplace, cheaper and also with greater speed and connection quality.
