Lufthansa said Tuesday its FlyNet in-flight broadband service is "winning over customers" since its launch in December.
The service, with equipment from Panasonic Avionics Corp. and service from Deutsche Telekom, has been installed on 17 of the carrier’s long-range aircraft, about 20 percent of the total long-haul fleet, the airline said. The airline said the service will be available on nearly the entire Lufthansa intercontinental network by the end of 2011.
“E-mail accessibility is immensely important, particularly for business travellers, but many leisure travellers are also taking advantage of the service,” said Christian Körfgen, vice president, product management and innovation. “Our surveys show that passengers are very interested in browsing the latest news on the Internet and accessing social networks.”
The system allows passengers with a WLAN-enabled device to log on to the Internet in the same way as they would do at a public hotspot. After opening up their browser, they are automatically connected to the exclusive, free of charge Lufthansa FlyNet portal.