About 67% of passengers in the Asia-Pacific region consider in-flight Wi-Fi crucial, while 78% of passengers said they would rebook their flights with a different airline if it offered high-quality Wi-Fi, according to a report jointly released on August 8 by London-based satellite telecoms firm Inmarsat and market research company Populus.
However, in-flight Wi-Fi is far from being commonplace among Chinese airlines. As of June 2018, there were over 3,360 registered airplanes in the Chinese mainland market, but only around 3% of them provided internet services. That level is far below in-flight Wi-Fi rates in North America, Europe and the Middle East, Li Wei, director of China Aviation Market Development at Inmarsat, told Global Times on Wednesday.
The data created when passengers browse Web pages onboard Chinese aircraft that fly across the border would be stored in stations in China to guarantee information security, Li said.
A joint study conducted by Inmarsat and the London School of Economics showed that by 2035, planes with in-flight Wi-Fi will be in operation all over the world, creating a new market worth USD 130 billion and bringing additional revenue of USD 30 billion to airlines.
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