One of my pet peeves of flying on Cathay Pacific for me has been the lack of in-flight internet (and not dine on demand for business class passengers – should change sometime next year as well).
So, I was surprised that after my Manchester – Hong Kong flight, the connecting flight to Ho Chi Ming City on a brand new Airbus A350 had WiFi availability, and I decided to check it out.
Pricing:
Not sure if the airline uses different pricing for various routes or if this is for all flights worldwide. The price for an hour is bit on the high side but wouldn’t mind paying a $20 flat free for a working connection for longer ones.
Purchasing:
You need to create an account first (you can probably use the same one in the future) and then enter the credit card details.
Connectivity:
I tried using Google’s speed test unsuccessfully a few times, but got the speedtest.net site to work.
Speedtest:
Th download speed was actually very decent (not sure how many were using internet on this flight) once I got it to work while the upload speed was quite low. The ping is high due to connection being made via satellite.
Streaming
Usually streaming video is practically impossible using inflight internet but Bloomberg News came through just fine.
Conclusion
The internet worked surprisingly well on Cathay Pacific, and I hope that they install this very same system on all of their planes.
I don’t mind paying $20 for a WORKING internet connecting as long as I can get my job done. I just hate when airlines sell internet at a ridiculous price while it is practically unusable (looking at Iberia now).
Also, selling the internet for a buck like Emirates does (500MB) is not the solution IF they don’t have enough bandwidth. I like the low price, but if it then doesn’t work due to bandwidth limitations, it is better to have a reasonable price so that only those that find it worthwhile pay for it.
