China’s biggest airlines have started offering free Wi-fi to passengers on a growing number of domestic flights, as they vie to win back business travellers who now often prefer to shuttle between cities on high-speed trains.
China Eastern Airlines on October 11 launched a free “basic” Wi-fi service on all its widebody aircraft operating on domestic routes, said a company representative who spoke anonymously per company rules.
The planes cover a total of 37 routes serving major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Kunming and Wuhan, the representative said.
Air China and China Southern Airlines, two of the company’s main competitors, already provide free Wi-fi on smaller percentages of their domestic flights, the source added.
“We’ve had ‘work from home’, and now a lot of business travellers are changing the phrase to ‘work from the air’,” he said, noting that a test of the free Wi-fi on one plane in August had met with positive customer feedback.
