Etihad to rollout Wifi on its European flights

Etihad is planning to roll out Wifi on its European routes from December this year, The initial plan as outlined by the Etihad CEO James Hogan is that they plan to have 2 aircrafts by the end of this year and a total of 5 by March 2012.

The airline is in the process of identifying a fleet-wide connectivity solution as part of its future plans. Of the five aircraft to be part of the scheduled rollout, three of them will be Airbus A330-300s, which will operate between Abu Dhabi and cities like Frankfurt, Geneva, London, Munich and Paris.

The airline plan seems to be to test the solution on these flights and then if the experimentation is successful, launch it on most of its International routes specially the ones to USA. From a business travelers perspective, this is a welcome decision as it would help people stay connected all the time which is really a helpful way. Airlines in the US have already implemented this successfully using the GoGo WiFi which has proved to be an instant hit. Hoping to see more airlines follow the suit and bring Wifi on-board.