In late January 2023, Singapore Airlines became the first carrier in Asia to offer unlimited free Wi-Fi to its Business Class passengers, following a five-month long trial across all its wide-body and Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.

It’s a significant shift from the airline in a few short years, with a 100MB connection costing a whopping US$23 (over S$30) back in 2018, 28% more than low-cost subsidiary Scoot was charging!

Thankfully there have been progressively expanded free allowances and reduced costs rolled out since then.

Most importantly, if you’re flying in Suites, First or Business Class, or are a PPS Club member or supplementary cardholder, there’s no longer any concern about costs on Wi-Fi equipped aircraft in the fleet, with a full-flight unlimited connection on offer.

Which aircraft have Wi-Fi?

All Singapore Airlines aircraft, with the exception of a small fleet of seven Boeing 737-800s, have high-speed Wi-Fi capability.

Singapore Airlines Fleet Wi-Fi Capability
Aircraft Type	Wi-Fi?	System
A350 Long Haul		Panasonic Ku-band
A350 Medium Haul		GX Ka-band (SITAOnAir)
A350 ULR		Panasonic Ku-band
A380		GX Ka-band (SITAOnAir)
737-800		n/a
737-8 MAX		Panasonic Ku-band
777-300ER		GX Ka-band (SITAOnAir) or Panasonic Ku-band
787-10		Panasonic Ku-band

Complimentary access plans

Here’s a summary of the latest fleet-wide complimentary Wi-Fi allowances, based on your cabin class and frequent flyer status.

Singapore Airlines Complimentary Wi-Fi Allowance
	PPS Club Member*	KrisFlyer Member	Non-KrisFlyer Member
Suites First Class Business Class	Unlimited free Wi-Fi
Premium Economy Class	Unlimited free Wi-Fi	3-hour Surf Plan	None
Economy Class	Unlimited free Wi-Fi	2-hour Surf Plan	None

* Includes supplementary cardholders

Non-KrisFlyer members in Premium Economy or Economy Class are now the only ones without a complimentary connection on the vast majority of SIA flights, though it’s free to join the programme, and a range of paid connection packages remains available once any free allowance is used up.

Note that SIA does not permit video streaming and calls in-flight.

Wi-Fi fees

Once you have used any complimentary Wi-Fi allowance on board a Singapore Airlines flight, the following regular time-based packages are available for purchase.

Singapore Airlines Wi-Fi Plans
Package	Cost	Description
1 hour Surf Plan	US$3.99	1 hour of continuous Wi-Fi access. Countdown begins after payment and will expire after the time limit is up, regardless of usage. Plan cannot be paused.
3 hour Surf Plan	US$8.99	3 hours of continuous Wi-Fi access. Countdown begins after payment and will expire after the time limit is up, regardless of usage. Plan cannot be paused.
Full Flight Surf Plan	US$15.99	Unlimited connection for the entire flight.

These represent a far simplified series of time-based options compared to the previous data limit plans, whereby costs could soon add up, particularly for data-intensive users on long flights.

The “Full Flight” option could be particularly useful for those without unlimited complimentary access, but who still need to remain productive during their journey.

For perspective, back in 2019 US$15.99 would get you only a 200MB Wi-Fi allowance, and in 2018 it got you only 60MB! Now it’s an unlimited plan in terms of both time and data. How things have changed!

How to connect

If you are planning to use a complimentary allowance based on your KrisFlyer or PPS Club status (e.g. when flying in Premium Economy or Economy Class), your membership details will need to be added to your booking via the Manage Booking portal, or at the check-in desk, prior to boarding.

The Wi-Fi system is usually activated above 10,000ft, but sometimes you won’t be able to establish a connection until the aircraft has reached cruising altitude, around 20 minutes after takeoff.

Enable Wi-Fi on your device and connect to the KrisWorld network.

The KrisWorld portal will then load automatically, but if it doesn’t – navigate to kw.sq.com.

Click ‘Wi-Fi Portal’ and then select either ‘Complimentary Access’ or ‘Select a Price Plan’ as applicable.

You may also have been provided with a Promo Code for complimentary Wi-Fi from Singapore Airlines, in which case you can enter it here instead of selecting one of the paid access options.

If you are connecting to complimentary Wi-Fi, your session will be activated by entering your name and seat number. For a paid plan, your credit card payment will then be collected.

Once connected, the portal will show flight time remaining and the duration of your Wi-Fi session remaining, if applicable.

Which system is fastest?

The Global Xpress (GX) Ka-band systems by SITAOnAir are the fastest – fitted to the airline’s:

• Airbus A350 Medium Haul
• Airbus A380

The system also made its way onto the airline’s older 777-300ERs (9V-SWA to 9V-SWT) that were retrofitted from the much slower SwiftBroadband (SBB) L-band system from late 2017.

As far as the rest of the 777-300ER fleet is concerned though, 9V-SWU onwards (including 9V-SNA to -SNC) came factory-fitted with the Panasonic system, starting in mid-2013.

Fun fact: Singapore Airlines was the first airline in the world to install the GX Aviation Ka-band Wi-Fi system on a passenger aircraft with the initial A380 Version 3 delivery, and on 17th December 2017 passengers on 9V-SKU’s inaugural flight to Sydney were treated to an unlimited connection to try it out.

Even with close to 100% of passengers using the system concurrently, fast speeds were reported.

The Panasonic Ku-band system fitted to the rest of the fleet uses a lower frequency range (12 to 18 GHz) than Ka-band (26.5 to 40 GHz), which means a reduced data transfer rate, but still provides good speeds.

We have typically recorded download speeds of 7-9 Mbps using the GX system, while 4-5 Mbps is more typical with the Panasonic system, though both are a marked improvement on the old SBB L-band connection for those who remember the slow, unreliable experience on pre-retrofit 777-300ERs and older A380s (0.8 Mbps is the best we ever got on those!).

Various other factors also impact your on-board Wi-Fi connection speed, including geographical location, altitude, atmospheric conditions including the weather, and of course passenger usage.

All things being equal though – you should notice faster speeds on a GX-equipped aircraft, compared to Panasonic.

Global coverage

The Wi-Fi service relies on both a satellite connection and national authorisations when overflying certain countries.

India is the main stumbling block on SIA’s network. The Panasonic system does now have authorisation for use in this airspace, though the SITAOnAir (GX Aviation) version does not, at the time of writing.

Here’s how the coverage looks depending on the Wi-Fi system installed, and therefore the aircraft type.

SITA OnAir (GX Aviation)
Global Coverage

Panasonic Avionics
Global Coverage

As you can see there will be a Wi-Fi outage period while overflying India on the way to Europe if you’re on an Airbus A380 or older Boeing 777-300ER (even though these have the fastest systems), but there is no outage on the Airbus A350 Long Haul or newer Boeing 777-300ERs on this route.

Additionally, there are two areas on SIA’s network that suffer from poor satellite coverage and therefore suffer from little to no connectivity:

• Polar regions
• South Indian Ocean

According to Singapore Airlines, this means you may encounter the following approximate Wi-Fi outage periods on selected flights:

• SQ478 SIN-JNB: Around 4h 45m into the flight, for around 1h 30m
• SQ479 JNB-SIN: Around 2h 45m into the flight, for around 1h 15m
• SQ22/24 SIN-EWR/JFK: Around 9h 30m into the flight, for around 2h 30m
• SQ21/23 EWR/JFK-SIN: Around 4h 30m into the flight, for around 2h 30m

Actual outage times and periods will depend on the exact routing your flight takes on the day.

Mobile data options

The three major telcos in Singapore continue to offer unlimited data packages for use with the Singapore Airlines onboard Wi-Fi.

There really seems little point to these packages any more, given that the maximum you can spend is US$15.99 (around S$21) for unlimited full-flight Wi-Fi, even if you get no free allowance whatsoever in your cabin class.

If you’re interested though, and flying on an equipped aircraft (i.e. all except the Boeing 737-800), available options are as follows:

S$29	S$25	S$25
Valid for 24 hours from activation.	Valid for up to 24 hours, from 00:00 Singapore Time on the day of activation (GMT+8).

The packages cover multiple flights within your subscription window, so if you are taking two flights within 24 hours, you will be connected on both of them for a single fee, which is perhaps the only advantage over the on-board Wi-Fi purchase packages, which are only valid for one flight sector.

You will also be able to send and receive SMS messages when using this service, which some people may find useful.

Pro Tip: Note that with the StarHub and M1 packages, the unlimited data allowance will reset at midnight Singapore time, wherever you are in the world, which could mean being charged twice if you’re not careful.

The connection and usage instructions for mobile data connections are available on the Singapore Airlines website here.

SIA’s Wi-Fi offering and pricing has come on leaps and bounds over the last five years or so.

It’s amazing to think that in January 2019 the airline was charging Business Class passengers US$15 to top up their 30MB free allowance by a measly 60MB, but just four years later is now offering unlimited full-flight Wi-Fi practically fleet-wide to these passengers.

Indeed the airline has become the first in Asia-Pacific to offer unlimited free Wi-Fi in Business Class on international flights.

Only those flying on the carrier’s small fleet of Boeing 737-800s now suffer from a lack of in-flight connection.

Further details of SIA’s inflight Wi-Fi service are available here.

(Cover Photo: Singapore Airlines)