Coffee, tea or WiFi? It turns out that for more than half of us, the answer is the connection. In a survey of 9,000 passengers worldwide, broadband service trumped inflight dining.
The survey, conducted by Inmarsat, which provides global mobile satellite communications, found among other things that availability of WiFi is now so important to travelers that 83% factor it in when choosing flights.
Not just WiFi, though, but good service. One in ten reported being unable to connect or keep a connection, and respondents rated quality of connection over speed, although speed was a serious issue, especially with business travelers.
This survey must have been among frequent fliers, which skews heavily to business travelers. Personally I have never used wi-fi on a plane, and I don’t plan to. My ipod, kindle and whatever movies they have are fine for me.
Flying any distance does give people some time to catch up with things like reading or editing photos. But if the connection were good and free or not too expensive, I think a lot of people would use the time to go on line and take care of business there. I probably would, too, although flying is one of the few times I’m actually “free” of the wired and wireless world.