Vietnam Airlines to launch inflight Wi-Fi service this week

By Nguyen Quy October 7, 2019 | 07:01 pm PT

Vietnam Airlines will launch Wi-Fi service on certain flights from October 10, 2019. Photo courtesy of Vietnam Airlines.

Vietnam Airlines will launch inflight Wi-Fi service on some flights connecting Hanoi and HCMC with cities in China, Japan and Singapore, starting Thursday.

Passengers will be charged VND75,000-735,000 ($2.95 -$29.95) depending on usage time and capacity.

Providing inflight Wi-Fi service is one of the steps that Vietnam Airlines is taking towards becoming a digital airlines by 2020 and an international five-star airline in the future.

The Wi-Fi service will be available on the domestic route from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and international flights from Hanoi to China’s Shanghai and Japan’s Osaka and between HCMC and Osaka and Singapore, the airline said in a statement Monday.

In the coming months, the airline will continue upgrading and expanding this service to Boeing 787 and other Airbus A350 aircraft with faster speeds, it said.

Le Hong Ha, deputy general director of Vietnam Airlines, said that when using the service, passengers can send text messages on popular applications such as Viber, iMessage, Messenger and Whatsapp.

"This is part of Vietnam Airlines’ efforts to catch up with the development trends of the world aviation industry, with many 5-star airlines like Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways and Lufthansa providing similar services," Ha said.

Vietnam Airlines operates flights on 60 international and 33 domestic routes.