i would not only pay a lot per flight for good wifi, i would also fly way more often
I’m not sure how common this preference is.
I think that the economic gains from people traveling on business having access to better wifi on planes might be quite large[1], but airlines themselves are not well-positioned to capture very much of those gains. There are a very small number of domestic airlines which don’t offer any wifi on their planes at all. The rest generally offer it for free, or for some relatively low price (on the order of $10). Often even the airlines that charge for it offer it as a free or discounted perk for their “frequent fliers”. Those airlines might have a hard time increasing the sticker price of their wifi offering, even if the quality improves a lot, so they’d have to hope for most of the gains to come from business-class travelers switching to them from a competitor (or, as in your case, deciding to fly at all, on the margin). But it’s not obvious to me that most business-class travelers themselves want better wifi, since once it improves past a certain point they might have very little excuse for not working through the flight. (Maybe this is too cynical, or already moot, idk.)
None of this is meant to say that airlines have no incentive to improve their wifi—I’m pretty sure some of them are already getting started on the Starlink transition—merely that there are a bunch of factors that might make that incentive weaker than it might obviously seem.
Maybe a sizable fraction of “the economic value of their average working hour * flight duration”, which could be thousands of dollars per flight for some travelers.
I think anyone who has ever tried to work on a plane knows that plane wifi is bad enough to reduce your productivity hugely. so I don’t think business travellers who are already paying thousands to fly would shy away from paying hundred of dollars for actually good wifi on a long haul flight.
I’d predict most business travellers are not really using being on a plane as an excuse to not work.
I’m not sure how common this preference is.
I think that the economic gains from people traveling on business having access to better wifi on planes might be quite large[1], but airlines themselves are not well-positioned to capture very much of those gains. There are a very small number of domestic airlines which don’t offer any wifi on their planes at all. The rest generally offer it for free, or for some relatively low price (on the order of $10). Often even the airlines that charge for it offer it as a free or discounted perk for their “frequent fliers”. Those airlines might have a hard time increasing the sticker price of their wifi offering, even if the quality improves a lot, so they’d have to hope for most of the gains to come from business-class travelers switching to them from a competitor (or, as in your case, deciding to fly at all, on the margin). But it’s not obvious to me that most business-class travelers themselves want better wifi, since once it improves past a certain point they might have very little excuse for not working through the flight. (Maybe this is too cynical, or already moot, idk.)
None of this is meant to say that airlines have no incentive to improve their wifi—I’m pretty sure some of them are already getting started on the Starlink transition—merely that there are a bunch of factors that might make that incentive weaker than it might obviously seem.
Maybe a sizable fraction of “the economic value of their average working hour * flight duration”, which could be thousands of dollars per flight for some travelers.
I think anyone who has ever tried to work on a plane knows that plane wifi is bad enough to reduce your productivity hugely. so I don’t think business travellers who are already paying thousands to fly would shy away from paying hundred of dollars for actually good wifi on a long haul flight.
I’d predict most business travellers are not really using being on a plane as an excuse to not work.