We’re proud of our inflight connectivity, but there are things that can make the experience a little inconsistent. The good news is that with new technology, improvements can come thick and fast.

Let’s start with some context. Inflight Wi-Fi was developed at the start of the century, led by the US, where most flights are domestic and over land, which made connecting with cellular towers on the ground straightforward. As demand grew, with more people wanting to browse the web and use more intensive apps like social media, so did the pressure on bandwidth. Plus without ground stations, connectivity wasn’t available for transoceanic flights.

So the focus shifted to satellite provision. You can spot the radome humps that house the antennas by looking on top of connected aircraft. They create a link between the plane, a satellite and a ground station. In 2016, when we introduced the Airbus A350 with factory-fitted inflight connectivity, there were just over 1,400 satellites. This soared to about 7,000 in 2022.