Norwegian marks five years of free WiFi

Norwegian yesterday celebrated five years of free WiFi on board European flights by revealing a survey of passengers' surfing habits in the air. Results show that a third of travellers log on to WiFi within the first five minutes of their flight, with Americans and Brits most likely to boast about of their holiday on social media. Yesterday was five years to the day since Norwegian launched free WiFi on board European flights, and to mark the occasion the airline polled a representative sample of 1,000 passengers across Europe about their in-flight surfing habits and combined it with data from 550,000 flights. The results were then analysed to reveal what passengers are searching, sharing and tagging in European skies. "To celebrate five years of free Wi-Fi, Norwegian’s new study reveals some fascinating insights into the world’s sky-high surfing habits. The results show how integral being connected is to people’s travel plans - with 18,000 passengers per day accessing Wi-Fi to chat with friends, read news and continue working whilst travelling across Europe,” says Chief Commercial Officer Thomas Ramdahl. Over 18,000 passengers use Norwegian's WiFi every day. Passengers aboard flights to Tromsø, Malaga, Barcelona, ​​Alicante and Madrid are the most active users. Since the service was launched in 2011, over 500 terabytes of data have been consumed on board flights, which is equivalent to streaming 1.2 million songs, receiving 170 million incoming emails or streaming 25,000 hours of Netflix.

More results from the survey:

: A third of passengers (28 percent) log on social media within five minutes of their flight. One in five passengers say they would be annoyed if they could not access social media during a flight - and three percent goes so far as to say that it would ruin their flight!

American and British passengers brag most of their holiday, with 40 percent of Americans and 20 percent of Brits posting an image or status about their trip during their flight.

German passengers are the fastest to log on to WiFi, closely followed by Swedes and Danes. Brits, Spaniards and Americans take the longest to connect.

The most popular websites visited at 35,000ft by Brits are news sites, including BBC, Guardian and Daily Mail, followed by Right Move and Amazon.

Only one in ten say they enjoy a break from social media when they fly. Spaniards are most dependent on social media, with 62 percent logging on during a flight, compared with 45 percent of Brits and 31 percent of Americans.

: Onboard WiFi has contributed to new trends in social media, with half of all travellers between 18 and 25 logging into Instagram to publish a "selfie" or a picture of the plane's wingtip. To date, #flynorwegian been tagged 12,900 times on Instagram. In 2011, Norwegian became the first airline to launch WiFi on European routes. Norwegian is still the only airline that offers the service for free in Europe. Norwegian WiFi works via an antenna mounted on each aircraft that is in turn connected to a satellite mounted on the fuselage. Since 2011, Norwegian has continued its technological development and has since launched Video On Demand, giving passengers access to Norwegian's inflight entertainment system via their own tablet or device. In November 2015, Norwegian also became the first airline to offer live TV on board European flights.