after United Airlines, Air France announces the arrival of free high-speed wifi on its planes

The two airlines signed an agreement with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company. The Air France fleet will gradually be equipped from 2025.

Good news for those who fly, wifi on board will become faster and above all free. No need to download everything offline before boarding, or pay a fortune to access your emails in mid-flight. Everyone will be able to connect via WiFi, watch films and series in streaming, listen to music, browse the networks, play. Just like we do at home.

Airlines have been testing on-board internet access via SpaceX satellites for several months. Apparently it went pretty well. In mid-September, United Airlines was the first major company to announce a partnership with Elon Musk’s company. A major partnership since its entire fleet will gradually be equipped from 2025. And wifi will become free. On Wednesday September 25, it was Air France’s turn to announce a similar partnership. Here again, all of the company’s planes will be affected. And there too, wifi will become free. They probably won’t be the only ones. Internet access has become such a commercial advantage that it is a safe bet that other companies will follow suit. Free wifi could therefore become the norm on planes.

This wifi will be different from the one we currently have. SpaceX’s is much faster and much more stable. For what ? Because its satellites are lower (in low orbit), so the signal has less path to travel. If you’ve ever tried the current wifi on a plane, you may have noticed that when you send a message on WhatsApp, it sometimes takes several minutes to arrive. Even if you pay, it is almost impossible to watch an HD movie without cuts. With SpaceX technology, we have the equivalent of 4G, which even allows videoconferencing.

In principle, everything will be free without any restrictions (at least that’s what the companies announce), which can paradoxically be worrying. Imagine yourself sitting on the plane between a shameless person who screams on video and another who gesticulates in all directions while killing zombies. We will have to show a lot of civic-mindedness.