British Airways In Flight Connectivity & Entertainment Archives

British Airways Trials Access to PressReader

BA is offering selected passengers free access to PressReader on a trial basis.

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“Have you been offered a small glass of orange juice and complimentary browse of the Daily Mail?”

There’s now no excuse for complaining about the range of newspapers offered on board British Airways aircraft and in lounges.

BA is offering selected passengers free access to the PressReader digital reading service.

The new service has soft launched on a trial basis in the past few days.

PressReader offers users access to over 7,000 publications in more than 60 languages from over 120 countries. Available publications include The Guardian, The Washington Post, Vogue, GQ, and Bloomberg Businessweek. These are downloaded to the PressReader smartphone and tablet app for reading offline.

Full details of how the service works are on ba.com

BA passengers can access content from PressReader in one of two ways:

1. If you have booked a flight directly through BA you can obtain access to PressReader through a dedicated link when you receive an “It’s Time To Fly” e-mail 24 hours before your outbound flight.

You can then browse and download an unlimited number of titles for three days, and these can be kept on your device for as long as you wish.

Note you will not receive a further e-mail when you take your return flight. Also, if you have booked a flight through a travel agent, you will not receive an e-mail but this may be expanded in the future.

2. When you connect at any time to the WiFi network of a BA operated lounge, such as London Heathrow.

BA does not appear to be offering free access to passengers who connect to its paid-for in-flight WiFi service at the moment.

BA is offering this on a trial basis. It has given warning it may be withdrawn at any time. This suggests that PressReader is allowing BA to test take-up before committing to a long-term contract. Therefore, if you do value this service do make your views known in post-flight surveys.

Update

Having made use of the service, it is recommended to download publications before heading to the airport if you can. If you do need to download publications in the lounge you do need to allow a generous amount of time for downloads to complete.

British Airways WiFi Installation Progress

Here’s our guide to the progress of the installation of WiFi across British Airways’ exising short and long-haul fleet, and future aircraft deliveries.

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British Airways WiFi (Image Credit: British Airways)

BA’s parent company International Airlines Group first announced plans to roll out in-flight WiFi across its member airlines some four years ago.

At the time, it was planned that 90% of all long-haul aircraft would have WiFi by early 2019.

That is now looking a little ambitious. BA has been progressively adding WiFi to its long-haul fleet. However, the availability varies widely by aircraft type.

At present, there is no way of knowing for certain if your flight with WiFi.

Here, we’ve indicated how many aircraft by fleet type have WiFi to give an indication of the likely chances of your flight being fitted with WiFi. Unsurprisingly, BA is focusing on refitting long-haul aircraft with First Class and high numbers of Club World seats first.

In short, you have a good chance of flying on a Boeing 747 with 86 Club World seats or a Boeing 777-200.

There’s a much smaller chance with the Airbus A380 and Boeing 777-300. There’s absolutely no chance on a Boeing 787-8 or 787-9 aircraft.

It is assumed that once a significant number of aircraft have WiFi, BA will be able to advise accordingly in online timetables and the Manage My Booking tool on the website and smartphone app.
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BA In-Flight Entertainment Guide

What In-Flight Entertainment system does BA use and what films and TV will be available to watch on my flight?

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BA Boeing 787-9 First Class IFE Screen (Image Credit: British Airways)

We receive a lot of enquiries about what in-flight entertainment (“IFE”) systems are used by BA and what programming is available, so we thought it would be useful to set out what we know.

Long-haul flights

All BA long-haul flights feature a personal IFE screen at every seat with on demand TV and audio programming. However, the systems used and, by extension, the quantity and picture quality of content vary by the type of aircraft.

The one exception is BA’s all business class Airbus A318 flight from London City to New York JFK. There is no IFE system fitted on this aircraft, so passengers are offered iPads with pre-loaded content instead.

Short-haul & medium-haul flights

There are no at seat IFE systems on any Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft which operate the vast majority of short-haul flights at London Heathrow or Gatwick.

A small number of BA’s fleet of Airbus A321 aircraft feature at seat entertainment screens. These operate selected flights to destinations such as Amman, Beirut, Moscow Domodedovo and Tel Aviv.

There are also no at seat IFE systems on any Embraer E-170 or E-190 aircraft at London City airport.

Overhead screens with a limited range of films and TV programmes are available on BA’s soon-to-be-retired fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft which operate on selected flights to Athens and Larnaca. There is also a selection of audio programming available at seat.

Let’s look at entertainment on long-haul flights in more detail:

BA In-flight entertainment systems on long-haul flights

BA uses three types of IFE system. In order of sophistication and quality these are:

BA to roll out WiFi across its long-haul fleet

British Airways is to install high speed WiFi across the majority of its Airbus A380 and Boeing 747, 777 and 787 fleet of aircraft from 2017.

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British Airways Boeing 747 G-BYGC featuring a radome encasing two satellite antenna for internet access (Image Credit: Nick Morrish/British Airways)

British Airways has today announced that it is to install high speed in flight WiFi across its fleet of long-haul aircraft.

The system will be a satellite based GoGo 2ku WiFi network.

The installation will begin in early 2017. BA’s parent company, International Airlines Group, has previously indicated that WiFi will be fitted to the majority of its long-haul fleet by 2019.

WiFi will be fitted on all Boeing 777, Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 aircraft. 18 of BA’s fleet of approximately 40 Boeing 747s will also be fitted with WiFi.

We surmise that these are the 18 aircraft which are mid-way through a refurbishment programme to upgrade aircraft interiors and in flight entertainment systems. A Boeing 747 aircraft will also be the first to be fitted with the new WiFi system.

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BA now trialling in-flight WiFi on a single Boeing 747

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British Airways Boeing 747 Heathrow (Image Credit: Heathrow)

We have to admit for having known for some time that British Airways has been trialling in-flight WiFi on a single Boeing 747 aircraft.

However, as there has been no way of knowing whether this aircraft will be available on a specific flight (we understand this was intentional) the trial has not been particularly newsworthy.

Based on this an update issued by BA it seems the trial is now being targeted to a single specific flight. That flight is BA183 from London Heathrow to New York JFK. However, we cannot currently verify that this is case.

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BA relaxes rules on the use of mobile phones after landing

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British Airways Tailfin (Image Credit: Nick Morrish/British Airways)

One of the many frustrations for air travellers are inconsistent rules between airlines. One specific irritation are the rules in respect of the use of mobile phones by passengers once an aircraft has landed on the runway.

The UK, in accordance with the rules of the Civil Aviation Authority (“CAA”), has always adopted a strict approach that mobile phones and other electronic devices cannot be switched on after landing until the aircraft has reached the gate and the aircraft engines have been switched off.

Some international airlines are not bound by such restrictions and allow the use of mobile phones once the wheels have touched down.

In practice, this often leads to passengers not following crew instructions.

BA has been working with the CAA and has been able to obtain agreement that mobile phones and other electronic devices can be used once the aircraft has cleared the runway and the all clear is given by cabin crew.

This is the second time in the past year that the CAA has relaxed its rules after lobbying by BA. Last year, BA obtained agreement that its in-flight entertainment systems could, subject to some restrictions, be used “gate to gate” rather than being switched on after take off and switched off before landing.

The new policy will apply network wide from 1 July 2013. Current policies on switching off electronic devices before take off remain unchanged.