As a starting point,
this increasing dependency to the internet is arriving to entrepreneurs’ minds
in every company. This specific thought is being translated to future revenues
and attracting internet- hungry customers in the short haul market.
The first sector to
let the market know about its interest on this opportunity was the airport.
Airline customers already have the chance to get access to Wi-Fi on ¾ of the
miles flown, according to data generated by Routehappy, a company which rates flights worldwide on
facilities such as entertainment and seats.
In perspective,
almost all of the long haul flights have Wi-Fi provided by satellite-based
services, which is costly but acceptable for this kind of flights; however, if
you were to hypothetically translate the same structure of Wi-Fi services to
short haul flights, the mechanic wouldn't be affordable. The cost would
increase and it would be greater than the income.
Despite this, the
airlines do not lose the expectations of creating a short haul Wi-Fi system on
their airplanes due to the fact that the world market will send up more
satellites, bringing costs down, and to the rising awareness of money-making possibilities
so that money will be no longer a hurdle.
Several European airlines are looking at on-board
Wi-Fi on short- haul flights, such as Lufthansa , Air France-KLM , Ryanair and
Vueling.
According to the
airline market's view, in a few years we will be living all this information
about Wi-Fi services in every plane we get on to, there won’t be a difference
between a short or a long haul flight. In addition to this, the service will be
offered free of charge in specific planes, and as a return the airport sector
will be more than excited about getting millions of dollars reflected on entertainment
revenues.
