Have a Vistara flight to catch but hate to miss your favourite show streaming online? Well, cheer up as now you can access WiFi up in the air as well. By Tanvi Jain
Good news for Vistara flyers, as the airline is likely to introduce in-flight WiFi from March this year. However, the service will be made available only on selected routes, mainly long-haul flights served by the 787 Dreamliners, and the Airbus SE A321. Moreover, these aircrafts will have WiFi on domestic routes as well.
Flyers don’t have to worry about the speed, as it will be a full-access broadband service, which will enable them to stream content and make voice and video calls. So, netizens cheer up, as now you won’t have to miss out on the Netflix series you have been hooked on to for a while, or live streaming of a cricket match, Facebook, WhatsApp and more, even while flying.
Vistara is a joint venture of Tata Group and Singapore Airlines. Tata group’s NELCO and Panasonic Avionics Corporation recently announced the partnership for offering in-flight broadband service in India, making Vistara, the first domestic carrier to provide in-flight broadband. Aero In-Flight Communication (IFC) services, is what NELCO has named this project.
A new category of licensees called in-flight connectivity (IFC) providers will be created by the department of telecommunications (DoT), for an initial token fee of INR 1 annually. People on-board will be able to make calls above 3,000 metres in the Indian airspace.
Vistara airlines will be using ISRO’s GSAT-14 satellite for enabling services in their aircraft. As many as six Dreamliners and 10 A321 planes have been ordered by Vistara so far, and all of them will have in-flight broadband service.
Vistara started flying in 2015 and currently operates 32 Airbus A320s and seven Boeing 737s. India’s plans to introduce in-flight WiFi service date back to 2016, and since then the aviation ministry has been amending provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act and associated rules.
Related: Onboard Vistara From Delhi To Bangkok: Experience Comfort In The Sky
