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Free WiFi is now available on all Emirates flights.

Emirates offers free in-flight WiFi, and there is no cost associated with it. There is, however, one catch.

No matter the cabin or travel class, all passengers would receive free basic in-flight WiFi, according to an announcement made by Emirates on May 19. Prior to the epidemic, the airline offered a similar service, but this time, time restrictions don’t seem to apply. Although this adjustment will benefit tens of thousands of people each week, it still has a different kind of cost.

$300 million was spent on in-car networking.

Inflight WiFi is expensive, from outfitting planes with the proper hardware to paying for the service itself. However, it seems that Emirates is prepared to go the extra mile because it has so far spent more than $300 million on onboard connection for its fleet of Boeing 777s and Airbus A380s. Even while there won’t be a fee for this in-flight internet, there is one restriction: Emirates Skywards members are the only ones who can use it for free. Emirates Skywards is the airline’s loyalty program, and enrollment is free.

Whether traveling in Economy, Premium Economy, Business, or First Class, members of any tier—Blue, Silver, Gold, or Platinum—will be able to send and receive free app messages.

Aside from that, the airline claims that first class travelers who are Skywards members would receive unlimited free (full) internet access, “enabling them to shop or work online while in flight.” This complete access is available to all Platinum Skywards members, regardless of travel class, including Silver, Gold, and Platinum Skywards members flying in business class.From May 2020, when we reported that the airline had discontinued providing passengers with free basic onboard WiFi, this is a significant turnaround. A 20 MB free data plan or two hours of free messaging were available to all passengers prior to the cut.

The criteria to sign up for Skywards

Emirates’ free basic inflight messaging is only accessible to members of the airline’s loyalty program, which it views as a “easy and complimentary process,” as has been the practice of some other airlines across the world. Emirates states that interested parties can join up immediately from the WiFi gateway aboard or via emirates.com, flydubai.com, the official Emirates app, or the flydubai app.

Another well-known airline that gives its loyal customers free in-flight WiFi is US carrier Delta Air Lines. As we noted last year, Delta was the first of the major US airlines to offer free WiFi to Delta SkyMiles members while flying.

Free texting is only available for basic messages.

Although free and ‘unlimited’ in terms of time, this inflight WiFi will only be good for app messaging. This applies to messaging services like:

WhatsApp

iMessage

Messenger on Facebook

WeChat Line

Viber

Additionally, it is unlikely that this would allow for voice and video conversations to be made using these apps, nor will it allow for the sending of photographs or videos.

In the end, non-Skywards members will have to pay $2.99–$5.99 (depending on the length of the flight) to use this service. So, overall, this is the amount that a Skywards member would save (per flight). Depending on the length of the journey, full internet connectivity is available to economy class passengers without Platinum status for a price ranging from $9.99 to $19.99. Another option is to pay $9.99 for 30 minutes of unlimited data.

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