Residential customers of Deutsche Telekom are receiving free in-flight broadband on all domestic, short and medium haul flights operated by Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa, Eurowings and Austrian Airlines).
Introduced towards the end of April 2020 the offer has now been extended until the end of 2021.
“According to a Bitkom survey, every other German would like to surf the Internet free-of-charge onboard an airplane,” says Hagen Rickmann, Board Member Business Customers at Deutsche Telekom. “We are now responding to this request and expanding our Wi-Fi offering on the plane. From now on, private customers can also surf free of charge on European flights of the Lufthansa Group.”
Inmarsat and Deutsche Telekom are working together to enable advanced roaming services, allowing subscribers of mobile network operators and Wi-Fi service providers to automatically access the in-flight Wi-Fi service.
“The simplicity of a plug-and play experience is the key reason why 40% of mobile subscribers in Europe actively use cellular roaming services when abroad. We now have the technology to fully emulate that cellular roaming experience on a flight. Merely turn on your smartphone and start using the inflight Wi-Fi services,” explains Asbjorn Christoffersen, Inmarsat Aviation’s Vice President of Retail Revenue Management.
“Starting with mobile app-based roaming – using the WISPr technology – we’ll expect to rapidly transition to fully automated cellular style roaming using Passpoint technology.”
Passengers are billed via their regular mobile network subscription.
As part of the campaign, Deutsche Telekom customers with a Magenta Mobil M tariff or higher can book the ‘Inflight Europa Flat’ Wi-Fi free of charge. For business customers, the flat rate is now also available free of charge from the Business Mobil M rate onwards. The tariff option is simply booked before the journey starts. The offer also applies to business customers of Magyar Telekom, Hrvatski Telekom, Slovak Telekom and T-Mobile Czech Republic, who use the One App instead of Deutsche Telekom’s Connect App.
The offer of free GX Aviation inflight broadband will be communicated via onboard announcements. Passengers can either login onto the connectivity service manually (via the portal of the respective airline) or through Deutsche Telekom’s Connect App. GX Aviation is available as soon as cruising altitude is reached. The app then automatically displays the available Wi-Fi and asks whether a connection should be established.
