Passengers to pay for Wi-Fi services

CHINESE airlines, including China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, will charge passengers for in-flight Wi-Fi services from the end of this year, China Telecom told Shanghai Daily yesterday.

After equipment upgrades and system tests, Wi-Fi services will begin for all passengers in wide-body aircraft on domestic routes and all international routes by the end of this year.

China Eastern and Hainan Airlines are the first carriers to offer the paid service, an official at China Telecom’s satellite communications subsidiary said during the Mobile World Congress Shanghai.

China Telecom won’t charge passengers directly. Instead, they offer in-flight bandwidth resources to airline firms, Shanghai Daily learned in an exclusive interview.

So far, China Telecom has offered in-flight Wi-Fi services to 1.71 million passengers on 120 aircraft from carriers like China Eastern, Hainan Airlines and Air China.

Airlines declined to comment on the issue yesterday.

Airlines now offer free in-flight Wi-Fi services to a limited number of passengers — China Eastern offers them to 100 passengers on Shanghai-Beijing flights.

In-flight Wi-Fi is a relatively new service in China after the ban on smartphone use was only recently lifted.

In January, the Civil Administration of China announced they would relax regulations and allow passengers to use smartphones in-flight.

Previously, mobile phones were required to be completely switched off during flights on all Chinese airlines.