Philippine Airlines Offering 30 Minutes of Free Inflight Wi-Fi

[HD video below] As part of its 75th anniversary celebrations, Philippine Airlines (PAL) has branded SITAOnAir’s technology as myPAL Wi-Fi.

Jaime J. Bautista, PAL president and COO said, “With 30 minutes each across all travel classes, this is the APAC region’s best free inflight internet offering, at least doubling almost every other airline.”

The Philippine flag carrier also has the region’s second highest proportion of connected jets in its long-haul fleet and is also one of only eleven airlines to have passenger Wi-Fi on over two-thirds of its long-haul fleet.

The airline has 21 aircraft equipped with connectivity, including 6 Boeing 777-300ER and 15 Airbus A330-300s.

The launch of the 30-minute free Wi-Fi service follows the roll-out of SITAOnAir’s new generation inflight portal, which simplifies the sign-up procedure on mobile devices and allows for a greater level of personalised content to be delivered to the passenger.

“This service is the next phase in our roll out, the new generation inflight portal being the first. It was a great success in enabling us to have a better understanding our passengers’ needs and allowing us to give a more personalised, more context-based offering - with premium content that suits their needs and requirements,” added Mr. Bautista.

Recent analysis by SITAOnAir showed 69% of passengers actively use their personal devices during the flight. The number of Wi-Fi adoptions increases tenfold when connections are free, and 83% of sessions are on smartphones (10% tablets, 7% laptops).

François Rodriguez, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at SITAOnAir said, “Free Wi-Fi is a big trend right now. This not only gives airlines a wealth of great data about their passengers, which they can use to more effectively market their services, it accompanies an increase in premium subscriptions and we’re getting anecdotal evidence that it also leads to an improved relationship with the cabin crew.”

myPAL

In addition to myPAL Wi-Fi, Philippine Airlines also offers myPAL Mobile and myPAL Player on enabled flights.

myPAL Mobile is an inflight GSM roaming service that allows passenger to make calls, send text messages and tweets using their own mobile/smart devices.

myPAL Player allows passengers to access multimedia files stored on a server in the aircraft using their own Wi-Fi enabled personal device (laptop, tablet or smartphone).

Philippine Airlines Interview with President & COO - HD (Jan 2016)

See also: Future of Air Travel - HD Video Interview with SITA President for Asia Pacific and other HD Videos.

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