Air Canada has introduced a sequence of initiatives meant to enhance the passenger expertise. I feel one change is especially noteworthy.
Air Canada provides free Wi-Fi in premium cabin
As of November 1, 2022, Air Canada Rouge will provide free Wi-Fi to Premium Rouge prospects. This can permit these prospects to stream their very own leisure, TV reveals, and flicks, hearken to their very own music, or just stay linked. Moreover, this can change the pre-loaded inflight leisure tables that these prospects have been beforehand given.
As earlier than, all Air Canada Rouge prospects can proceed to entry a big choice of complimentary films and TV reveals via the “Leisure on Demand” part of the onboard portal.
For context, Rouge is Air Canada’s low price provider, and Premium Rouge is the provider’s enterprise class product. Air Canada Rouge has a fleet of roughly 40 plane, all of that are Airbus A320-family slender physique jets (this contains the A319, A320, and A321).
With this growth, Air Canada Rouge is now the one airline in North America to explicitly provide free Wi-Fi to premium cabin passengers (after all JetBlue and La Compagnie provide free Wi-Fi to all passengers, whereas Delta is within the technique of rolling out free Wi-Fi for all passengers).
Why would solely Air Canada Rouge get free Wi-Fi?
On the floor it appears a bit backwards to introduce free Wi-Fi in enterprise class on a low price provider, however not on the complete service provider mother or father firm. So what’s the logic for this? I believe it comes down to some elements:
- Air Canada Rouge doesn’t have seatback leisure, whereas Air Canada does provide that on mainline jets, so there’s extra of a necessity to remain entertained on Air Canada Rouge
- There are price financial savings right here, as Air Canada Rouge shall be eliminating the tablets with inflight leisure that have been beforehand supplied in Premium Rouge
- Sarcastically, Air Canada Rouge has excessive pace satellite tv for pc Wi-Fi, which isn’t out there on most mainline jets, so these planes even have the bandwidth to help this initiative
- I believe fewer folks purchase Wi-Fi on Air Canada Rouge than Air Canada (because it’s extra of a leisure-oriented operation), so the misplaced income is probably going smaller
Backside line
As of November 2022, Air Canada Rouge shall be introducing free Wi-Fi for premium cabin passengers. It is a good growth, and for some vacationers will take the sting out of flying with Air Canada’s low price provider.
Whereas it appears counterintuitive to supply free Wi-Fi on the low price provider however not the complete service provider, this comes all the way down to Air Canada Rouge having extra Wi-Fi bandwidth, and the airline additionally having the ability to get monetary savings by eliminating tablets in enterprise class.
What do you make of Air Canada Rouge introducing free Wi-Fi?
