Photo/NBD

Sept. 20 (NBD) -- The Chinese inflight Wi-Fi market is growing slowly though the Chinese regulator relaxed its restrictions on mobile device use on aircrafts in January this year.

From January 19 of 2018, a number of Chinese airlines began to allow passengers to use portable electronic devices (PED) such as smartphones and tablets, but phones still have to be switched to airplane mode.

It is noted that China's aviation market has become one of the world's fastest-growing markets.

Airplane manufacturer Airbus predicted that China will purchase more than 5,300 new civil and cargo aircrafts by 2033, which will make the country the biggest aviation market in the world.

The inflight Wi-Fi market will expand along with increasing domestic passenger transport volume, an analyst for the aviation industry told NBD, adding that airlines, inflight Wi-Fi service providers and network carriers will all benefit from the market growth. 

By 2022, the number of flights that are equipped with inflight Wi-Fi devices is expected to hit 11,000, 19 percent of which will be operated by airlines in the Asia Pacific region, market research institution Global Industry Analysts said. The Chinese market will become the major contributor to the climbing number. 

Seeing the great potential of the inflight Wi-Fi sector, Chinese airlines have been accelerating the pace to scramble for market share. For example, Air China has raised over 20 billion yuan (2.9 billion U.S. dollars) since November 2016 to buy or upgrade inflight Wi-Fi devices. Spring Airlines has completed the installation of such devices on two airplanes.

However, airline companies still have difficulty in serving Wi-Fi to most of customers due to the high cost of satellite communication, aviation commentator Lyu Biao said to NBD.

In addition, insiders revealed that airlines will also pay telecom firms for data flow, and the inflight Wi-Fi service is over 100 times more expensive than ground mobile data flow.

According to a report on the trend of aviation market released by research team of the Civil Aviation Data Analysis, a total of 82 airline companies are providing inflight Wi-Fi service, an increasing of 17 percent from the number for the previous year. 

Currently, the inflight Wi-Fi service has been made available to more than one third of flights worldwide. Of that, 71 percent of flights offered by U.S. airlines offer the service throughout the trip, according to air travel platform Routehappy.

In China, nine airlines including China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines are operating inflight Wi-Fi business, but eight of them provide the service on less than 5 percent of their flights.

As domestic airlines now are not allowed to charge passengers for the Wi-Fi service, it takes time for them to find a clear business model to make profits from the emerging business.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn