Back in August 2019, Vistara had confirmed to LiveFromALounge that they would be offering wifi on their medium and international long-haul network which would be operated on their Boeing 787-9 and the Airbus A321neo aircraft. We did not hear much of it further, apart from Vistara’s contract with Panasonic on their inflight entertainment piece.
Vistara 787-9 VT-TSD undergoing testing at Everett (Image Credit: Matt Cawby)
On February 19, Vistara has confirmed their plans about offering in-flight wifi on their new equipment. Vistara’s Vinod Kannan said,
As Vistara inches closer to launching long-haul international operations and becomes a global brand, our steadfast effort is to provide a truly world-class service to our customers to and from India. Our partnership with Panasonic in providing a state-of-the-art IFE system and satellite connectivity is a step in that direction, and we are confident that it will further elevate the five-star flying experience that Vistara is renowned for.
Tata group company, NELCO launched their in-flight communication service for airlines, and Vistara has confirmed that they are a customer. Nelco has further partnered with Panasonic Avionics so that when customers are not using the bandwidth leased by Nelco on the ISRO satellites, it tunes into the partner network of Panasonic Avionics.
Pricing is yet not set for the inflight wifi proposition and is expected to be finalised by May 2020. Vistara will first launch connectivity on their international flights and then examine the domestic proposition.
This is an exciting piece of news, given India will finally get inflight wifi in the months ahead and this should be finally putting to rest one contention Indian passengers have about not being able to connect enough.
I hope the price is at a higher end so that one of the few remaining spots on the planet (an Aircraft), offering respite from a hyper connected world remains so.
Couldn’t agree more! I actually look forward to the lack of connectivity in the air and am not thrilled at the prospect of having to listen to people talking loudly on their phones and playing WhatsApp videos on flights. Ugh.
Most Tata products are quite crappy. I say this as a former employee of IHCL where we were forced into using Tata Docomo CDMA phones, and Tata Indigos and Safaris as hotel cars as we needed to support the group companies.
Not sure how well Nelcos solution will work