Global Demand for In-flight Connectivity Continues to Soar



More than 50 percent of global passengers say in-flight Wi-Fi availability plays an integral role in their airline choice when booking a flight.

CHICAGO, April 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Gogo (NASDAQ: GOGO), the global leader in providing broadband connectivity solutions and wireless entertainment to the aviation industry, recently conducted a global study on in-flight connectivity and entertainment and found that the demand for in-flight connectivity services continues to soar and drive passenger behavior.

Global Demand for In-flight Connectivity Continues to Soar

Gogo’s global study reveals that when choosing a flight, more than half of global travelers factor Wi-Fi into their choice of airline.

The U.S. market has become saturated with in-flight Wi-Fi and wireless in-flight entertainment.  But, the interest in these services is even greater for travelers in the rest of the world, where the proliferation of in-flight connectivity is still in its early stages. Outside the U.S. and Canada, 86 percent of travelers say they are interested in using in-flight connectivity vs. 75 percent within the U.S. and Canada. When it comes to wireless in-flight entertainment, 76 percent of global travelers show interest vs. 67 percent of U.S. and Canadian travelers.

The percentage of passengers boarding a flight with at least one Wi-Fi enabled device also continues to climb. Today, 90 percent of global passengers brought at least one Wi-Fi enabled device on-board their last flight. When it comes to smartphones and tablets, Android is the operating system of choice among global travelers. There are more than twice as many Android powered smartphones as iPhones being carried onboard the world’s commercial aircraft.

“The need for ubiquitous connectivity is no secret.  There are very few places on earth today that people can’t connect and the plane is really the last frontier,” said says Ash ElDifrawi, Gogo’s chief commercial officer. “What’s surprising to us is that the demand is actually higher outside of the U.S. and Canada, where we are just scratching the surface in terms of connecting planes. The growing demand of in-flight services outside of the U.S. and Canada creates a significant opportunity for airlines servicing these regions around the world.”

Gogo has created an infographic that details some of these findings, which can be found here.  This data was compiled from Gogo’s global traveler research study and represents participants across 19 countries and 5 continents. All participants had taken a round-trip flight in the past twelve months.