Yesterday, China Southern Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Chunqiu Airlines and Xiang Peng Airlines also announced the timetable for allowing passengers to use mobile phones on the plane after Hainan Airlines and China Eastern Airlines "lifted the ban". China Southern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines respectively announced that they will realize "air start" from today; Xiang Peng Airlines lifted the "mobile phone ban" on June 65438+ 10/8; Shandong Airlines will allow passengers to use mobile phones on June 22nd, 65438. On the first day of Spring Festival travel rush, Spring Airlines will "lift the ban" on mobile phone flight from 1; China Air China is further improving the relevant work plan, and will realize the "air start" in the future. This means that in 20 18, China civil aviation will enter the "mobile phone era".
dynamic
Five airlines announced the lifting of the "mobile phone ban"
China Southern Airlines: Passengers can use their mobile phones on board from today.
China Southern Airlines announced that from June 5438+1October 19, passengers on actual flights of China Southern Airlines can use portable electronic devices (PED) such as mobile phones, tablet computers (PADs), notebook computers and e-readers during the flight. When passengers use their mobile phones in the air, they need to be set to "flight mode". China Southern Airlines said that due to the large number of flights of China Southern Airlines, the revised on-board safety demonstration video and safety instruction card will be updated gradually in the cabin, so please refer to the cabin and cockpit broadcasts. At present, China Southern Airlines 15 Airbus A330-300 has achieved satellite Internet access in the cabin. Wireless network service is free. Passengers can find out whether the flight provides Internet service through the official APP, the internal logo of the aircraft cabin or consulting the flight attendants.
Xiamen Airlines: Boeing 787 wide-body fleet can surf the Internet with mobile phones.
Xiamen Airlines said that starting from 00: 00 on June 65438+ 10/9, all passengers on Xiamen Airlines flights can use mobile phones (smart phones) with flight mode and portable computers or tablets with a specified size (the sum of length, width and height does not exceed 3 1cm) during the whole flight. It is worth mentioning that Xiamen Airlines' Boeing 787 wide-body fleet has all been equipped with on-board WI-FI function, and began to provide free experience services to passengers as early as 20 15. At that time, you could only log in with Pad or computer. After the restrictions on mobile phones are relaxed, passengers can apply for a password in advance to access Internet services in the air with their mobile phones on flights of 787 models.
Shandong Airlines: The mobile phone ban was lifted on the 22nd.
Shandong Airlines announced that starting from 65438+1October 22nd, passengers on actual flights of Shandong Airlines will be able to use portable electronic devices (PED) such as mobile phones, tablet computers (PADs), notebook computers and e-readers during air flight.
Spring Airlines: "Mobile phone ban" was "loosened" on the day of the Spring Festival travel rush craze
Zhang Wuanze, spokesperson of Spring Airlines, said that Spring Festival travel rush was officially opened to grab tickets on February 1 this year, and all domestic and international flights of Spring Airlines will be "loosened" at the same time. At that time, passengers can use the mobile phone with flight mode turned on during the whole flight.
Yunnan Xiangpeng Airlines: Mobile phone restrictions were lifted yesterday.
Yesterday, according to the news released by Yunnan Airlines Official Micro, Xiang Peng Airlines officially announced on a B737 flight with flight number 8L9857: "Xiang Peng Airlines is the first airline in Southwest China to open mobile phones and other electronic equipment in the air. Now, you can adjust the device to flight mode and enjoy the endless fun of playing electronic devices such as mobile phones and tablets all the time. "
experience
On the first day of lifting the ban, the flight was spit out. Wireless network is too slow.
Yesterday, China Eastern Airlines flight MU5 137 took off from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and its destination was Beijing. This is a flight that can provide WI-FI in the air. If you need to connect to WI-FI in the air, you need to connect to CEAIR-WIFI, enter the last four digits of flight number and ID number in Apple's own safari browser, and you can use WI-FI after grabbing the reserved places.
The flight attendant said that there are only nearly 65,438+000 places to connect to WI-FI on this flight. Passenger Mr. Liu said that WI-FI is too slow to log in to the webpage, so he can barely use WeChat and send text, and the picture will take 5- 10 minutes to send.
analyse
WI-FI flights will not increase significantly in the short term.
Statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration show that the number of domestic civil aviation passengers exceeded 488 million last year. The average flight time in China is about 2.5 hours, which means that China people spend more than 654.38 billion hours on the plane every year. If this time is used through the Internet, it will have great commercial value. Some organizations predict that aircraft with WI-FI service will cover the whole world in 2020, which will generate a new market of about 654.38+03 billion US dollars. The beneficiaries include airlines, hardware equipment suppliers, content providers, retailers, hotel travel service providers and advertisers.
Faced with huge economic prospects, will airlines compete to increase WI-FI flights? Some insiders said that due to the limitation of cost, technology, number of satellites and possible "total bandwidth", a large number of WI-FI flights will not be increased in the short term. First of all, the installation of WI-FI equipment on domestic commercial flights is divided into wired installation and modification. Wired installation is installed when airlines buy new planes. Because the order cycle was more than 1-2 years, most industries did not require the installation of this equipment because of the "mobile phone ban" at that time. Modification will be more troublesome, except that the equipment is as high as $6.5438+0 million, the order cycle will take half a year, and the aircraft needs to be installed in the factory. The whole installation period is 654.38+05-30 days. Taking wide-body aircraft as an example, it will cost 6.5438+0 million yuan to stop commercial operation every day, and it is difficult for aviation enterprises to make up their minds to install it on a large scale.
Secondly, the aircraft WI-FI services of domestic airlines are in the experimental stage, and no airline has obtained a formal commercial license. Satellite Internet access needs to be purchased from a satellite access service provider, and the 1G traffic required for a flight with a voyage of about 3.5 hours is about 65,438+10,000. Airlines do not have a "commercial license" and are not allowed to charge for WI-FI services. They can only be included in the cost to provide a better customer experience.
Third, it's really not the airline's fault that WI-FI is slow on the flight. The main reason is that the bandwidth bottleneck on the plane is difficult to break through. Because ITU allocates the orbital position of KU satellite to various countries, the total bandwidth that the satellite can provide is limited, which is equivalent to "the cake remains unchanged and more and more people share it". The more flights are connected to the network, the slower the speed will be.
It is also known that internationally, the coverage of on-board WI-FI is not high, and it is estimated that on-board WI-FI can only cover 30%-40% of global flights.