Free Wi-Fi for Cathay Pacific premium economy

Travelling in Cathay Pacific premium economy has just become more appealing, with free Wi-Fi now available to all passengers in the ‘more premium than economy’ cabin.

The Oneworld member airline has been steadily extending its complimentary inflight Internet service.

It now covers not only first and business class but any Cathay Diamond and Cathay Gold frequent flyers travelling in any class across the entire ‘brushwing’ fleet.

That spans from the nimble Airbus A321neo planes which dart around Asian to the flagship Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 jets criss-crossing the globe.

Cathay's Gold frequent flyers and premium economy passengers will soon get free Wi-Fi.

The only caveat is that frequent flyers must have their Cathay membership number listed against their booking.

And this perk is exclusive to the Cathay rewards program: it and doesn’t extend to the equivalent Oneworld tiers offered through the loyalty programs of other airlines in the Oneworld alliance (such as Qantas Platinum and Gold).

On board, passengers can connect with one device at a time and can switch between devices at any time during their flight.

How much does Cathay Wi-Fi cost?

If you’re not among those passengers eligible for free Wi-Fi, Cathay Pacific offers three paid plans based on how long you are connected:

• US$10 for one hour
• US$13 for up to six hours
• US$20 for over six hours, through to the entire flight

On flights of six hours or less there’s also a US$4 Message Pass which lets you send and receive text messages (but no photos) through the likes of the Apple and Google Messages apps, WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger.

Note that while the six-hour and entire-flight plans can be paused – while you enjoy your meal or even watch a video – the one-hour plan can’t be paused, so choose your timing carefully and make full use of that hour.

Business class passengers enjoy free Wi-Fi on all Cathay Pacific flights.

In addition, it’s not possible to upgrade from the hour-long option to a six-hour or full-flight plan if it turns out you want or need to stay online longer.

Once those 60 minutes are up, your only option for staying connected is to pay for a new plan at full price – and even if that's only paying for one extra hour, you’ll end up having paid the same US$20 as for a whole flight pass yet had only two hours of connectivity.

All things considered, then, the US$13 six-hour and US$20 entire-flight plans offer the best value.

Getting online with Cathay Wi-Fi

Getting online is a simple process – fire up your device, connect to the onboard Cathay Pacific wireless network and wait for the sign-up page to appear (or enter wifi.cathaypacific.com into your Web browser).

In addition to the paid package options you’ll see a note that first and business class passengers, and Cathay Diamond members, enjoy exclusive complimentary Wi-Fi access – so if that’s you, then that’s the box to click.

Then enter your name and seat number to fire up the free Wi-Fi.

This is why Cathay Diamonds need to make sure their membership number is listed on their booking: because this screen verifies your identity and frequent flyer status against the passenger manifest.

The process is the same on a smartphone or tablet: however, it’s worth noting that passengers can connect only one device at a time, although they can of course switch between devices at any time during their flight.

You can expect speeds anywhere from around 4-10Mbps, and even that baseline of 4Mbps is quite usable.

As on most airlines, the Wi-Fi will cut out from time to time.

This can be caused by any number of factors such as when an aircraft banks or manoeuvres away from the direction of the satellite, which can cause temporary loss of connectivity.

Free and reasonably fast WiFi turns your business class seat into an office in the sky.

Mobile roaming on Cathay Pacific flights

If you have an Optus or Vodafone mobile plan, you can also take advantage of each carrier’s $5/day inflight mobile roaming on Cathay Pacific flights.

(Cathay is one of around 20 airlines which permit Optus or Vodafone inflight mobile roaming: others include Emirates, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines.)

Both deliver “3G-like speeds” via satellite – except it uses your phone’s mobile data rather than Wi-Fi, with AeroMobile selected as your mobile network.

And if you activate $5 airline roaming during your flight and within 24 hours of landing in a country covered by $5 global roaming, this is counted as the same $5/day charge, rather than seeing you slugged twice, once for $5 in the air and again for $5 when you land.

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