DHAKA: Over 200,000 passengers have been using Emirates’ free onboard Wi-Fi since October this year, taking advantage of the airlines’ service to connect with family, friends or colleagues when they fly.

The Emirates currently offers Wi-Fi connectivity on 86 aircraft--on board all of its 56 Airbus A380s, as well as on 30 of its Boeing 777s. A comprehensive retrofit programme is also underway to install Wi-Fi capability across the rest of its fleet.

On 51 of Emirates’ A380s, the first 10MB of data is free, and a token $1 charge is levied for the next 500MB. On all other aircraft, getting online costs US$1 due to the current hardware and software installed.

Until 01 January 2015, proceeds from these connection charges will be donated to the Emirates Airline Foundation to help improve quality of life for disadvantaged children around the world.

“Emirates sees inflight Wi-Fi as an essential value-add service that should be freely available for our customers to connect with friends, family and business. At the moment, software and technical limitations mean that on some of our aircraft we still have to levy a token charge for Wi-Fi. We are working hard to overcome this but until then, it is only $1 to get online,” said, Patrick Brannelly, Emirates’ VP for Corporate Communications - Product, Publishing, Digital and Events.

Since Emirates introduced onboard Wi-Fi three years ago, more than 600,000 passengers have connected to the service, and usage is rising in tandem with the growing penetration of mobile devices and changing lifestyles.

The industry leader in onboard connectivity, Emirates was the first airline to install in-seat telephones and onboard faxes back in 1995. Today, customers onboard Emirates can connect to Wi-Fi, send emails and text messages via their personal ice entertainment system screens, as well as use their personal mobile devices to make calls and send messages.

BDST: 1830 HRS, DEC 11, 2014