Qantas makes last-minute call to abort high-profile debut of in-flight wi-fi service

Qantas launch new air safety video using everyday Australians 6:21

Everyday Australians star in Qantas' all new safety video for 2017. Courtesy: Qantas

• January 29th 2017
• 2 months ago
• /video/video.news.com.au/Travel/

QANTAS has made the last-minute call to abort the high-profile test flight of its in-flight wi-fi service, citing “stability issues” with the service.

On the eve of the scheduled public debut of the service including a high-profile media launch tomorrow to show off the capabilities, Qantas pulled the pin with a statement saying it the system was not ready.

“We’ve been testing in-flight wi-fi for several weeks and the performance has been strong,” the airline said in a statement.

“We were preparing to open it up to media and customers this week as we continue our finetuning over the next few months, but some stability issues have emerged that we need to fix before customers can use it.

“We’re working with NBN and ViaSat to fix these issues very soon. We remain on-track for a broader roll out to the Qantas Domestic fleet from mid-2017.”

The announcement is the latest delay for the Wi-Fi service which Qantas previously planned to launch in February.

The in-flight Qantas service uses NBN’s Sky Muster satellite signal but is delivered to the planes by US company ViaSat.

The cause of the latest problem delaying the service’s launch is not clear but the NBN insisted in a statement it issued in the wake of the Qantas announcement that its satellite service, which has had a series of technical issues since its 2015 launch, was not to blame in this case.

“NBN understands that the technical issues that caused Qantas to cancel its in-flight wi-fi media demonstration flight did not involve the NBN Sky Muster satellite connection.”

“Qantas has informed us that the NBN Sky Muster satellite connection that provides connectivity to the aircraft has been performing well but as with any technology trial, there’s always a chance things can go awry when you are the first to try something.”

“While this is a disappointing, temporary setback we will continue to work with Qantas and Viasat to get this pioneering technology off-the-ground.”

The service, when it is launched, will allow passengers to stream programs and music from Foxtel, Netflix and Spotify,

Among the packages that will be part of the service, Qantas passengers will be given a free three-day trail of the Foxtel streaming app. Netflix and Spotify will also offer passengers a 30-day free trial.

Qantas had invited key technology journalists to trial the service tomorrow on a invite-only light hosted by Dr Terry Percival of CSIRO who helped create the Wi-Fi standard.