Lufthansa to Bring Back In Flight WiFi

By | October 12, 2009
Airbus A319
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Lufthansa is bringing back in-flight wi-fi. As reported by Upgrade Travel, Lufthansa will be the first transatlantic carrier to put out a comprehensive plan for wi-fi connectivity after Boeing discontinued its in-flight wi-fi offering.

Lufthansa’s system, called Flynet, is Panasonic-based, and uses a satellite based network, like Row 44, which is working with Southwest and Alaska, but not Gogo,which works with Delta, American, United, etc, which uses ground-based receivers and thus will not work over water. The new service should launch next year.

Prices have not yet been set, but will be offered hourly, flat rate monthly, and mileage redemption rates. The service also features a GSM/GPRS mobile network allowing text messaging and data transfer between smartphones such as PDAs, iPhones and Blackberrys.

Lufthansa still has 69 satellite equipped aircraft left over from the Boeing days, which at the time made it the largest internet equipped fleet.