Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss is keen to see free Wi-Fi on board his company’s planes, assuming its providers can catch up. Speaking at the APEX EXPO conference in Long Beach, CA this week Weiss suggested some form of free is on the company’s roadmap for at least some passengers. But who and when is very much unclear.
For starters, he was clear that the current fleet solution is insufficient to support the level of service he would expect to provide for passengers on a free solution.
Free wifi in its general application is the way to go. But you want the experience to be good. We have some very good connectivity on the A350s and the A330neos, less so on the 787s which were our first to have Wi-Fi. So we need to do some updates and changes. But when we have enough bandwidth on the planes then definitely for our Flying Club members or our Gold [elite status members], our Upper Class and Premium, a form of free is [under consideration].
The back half of the answer also brings up the range of options of how free might fly. Tying it to members of the loyalty program would not be a unique proposition. Nor would limiting it to only top tier elites. Delivering it to Upper Class? Sure. Premium economy? Why not. But all of those come with different types of implementation challenges, which can be magnified when integrating multiple providers.
Weiss was also careful to caveat the “free Wi-Fi” conversation about it being a form of free. Making messaging free to premium cabins or top elites would not be seen as a particularly generous offer, for example. Making that available to everyone on board would be better. Differentiating between browsing and streaming service levels (and what that really means anymore, as most “browsing” involves video of some sort) could allow for a more broadly usable service but leave open an option for additional monetization.
That monetization is also still part of the plan. Like most of the rest of the industry, Weiss says Virgin Atlantic is considering different approaches to monetization, with opportunities for “cool partners on the content side.” Those sorts of partnerships typically would help offset some of the service costs but not fully cover them. It will be very interesting to see if Virgin Atlantic develops a business model to close that gap or simply absorbs the cost.
Ultimately, however, he appears hesitant to commit to a new solution for fear that it will not grow with the company’s needs. “We have to think about how solutions will work over the next several years, rather than just a point in time,” Weiss shared. “We don’t want to make a decision then regret it when it doesn’t work well.”
It is also entirely unclear what qualifies as a sufficiently good level of service on board or what timeline is in place for completing the necessary moves. So chalk this one up as sure, eventually. But with no apparent concrete plans in place.
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