On the flight CA4108 from Beijing to Chengdu in July 6th, Li Jiaxiang, Director of the civil aviation administration of China, sent greetings through Air China’s official “Weibo” account, which became the first internet message in China that came from the sky.
CHINA – Air China set off its first aircraft with WLAN services early in the year 2011 and based on that, it now connects WLAN inside the plane with Internet outside thus achieving connection between the flight and the ground.
Passengers on board of this kind of aircrafts, according to sources in Air China, can now use their own tablets or laptops to log onto a certain website thereby starting to use Weibo, sending emails, viewing stock trends and checking flight status, etc., however, mobile phones cannot be used to access the internet.
There are already several airlines equipping Internet services on their flights such as Lufthansa, Emirates Airlines, Virgin Airways, US Southwest Airlines, etc. with Air China now join the team and being the first one in China.
Currently, the number of aircrafts that provide internet service within Air China is still limited, according to which, persons in charge indicated that the company would further focus on equipping those flights with high carrying capacity such as Airbus 330 and Boeing 777 with internet services. “The reason is that Wide-body aircrafts are working mainly on international routes and those between major cities. However, we will accelerate this progress and hopefully to expand the service to the whole flights in a short time so that much more of our customers can benefit from it.”
