Your guide to Virgin Australia inflight WiFi

Virgin Australia inflight WiFi is making a long-overdue comeback, in a move intended to sharpen the challenger’s competitive edge against rival Qantas.

But while the Flying Kangaroo continues to offer free Qantas WiFi to every passenger, Virgin says its relaunch of inflight Internet will be free only to business class passengers, Velocity Platinum frequent flyers and members of the invitation-only Virgin Australia Beyond VIP program.

That’s markedly different to Virgin’s original WiFi offering, which provided a slow ‘basic’ connection for free with a higher-speed service starting from $6.99.

Virgin initially opted for a combination of free and paid WiFi on domestic flights.

Do Virgin Australia flights have WiFi?

At the time of writing, Virgin Australia flights don’t have WiFi. The service was switched off in April 2020, when the airline collapsed into administration before being bought by Bain Capital, although airline execs including CEO Jayne Hrdlicka have always maintained the return of WiFi was a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

Virgin Australia now hopes to relaunch inflight WiFi by December 2022, saying a new high-speed satellite service “will gradually be installed” on the majority of the airline’s Boeing 737 fleet “over the next 18 months, starting before the Christmas holiday break,” with the service switched on “between Christmas holidays and mid-2023.”

This means some Virgin Australia 737s may let travellers remain connected above the clouds during the December-January holidays or even the months following but don’t expect to see WiFi available on almost every Virgin flight until early 2024, making inflight Internet a bit of a ‘lucky dip’ in the interim.

Is Virgin Australia WiFi free?

When it returns, Virgin WiFi will be free for business class passengers, Velocity Platinum frequent flyers and members of the invitation-only Virgin Australia Beyond VIP program.

All other passengers will have to pay to join Virgin Australia’s inflight WiFi network.

That’s in keeping with the airline’s mid-market ‘value’ positioning of giving passengers the basics to keep fares down, and letting them pay for extras they want.

Virgin Australia's domestic WiFi service will once again let travellers remain connected above the clouds.

Inflight Internet costs airlines a lot of money – just to have a connection between the planes, the satellite and the ground station, even without anybody actually logging in to use it.

So if passengers don’t want WiFi, the argument goes, it shouldn’t be added to the bottom line and priced into their fare, which would have the effect of raising ticket prices across the board.

“Passengers don’t want to pay more than they have to so our strategy is to basically keep our costs as low as they possibly can be and provide those extra things that really matter to people in a cost-efficient way,” CEO Hrdlicka has previously remarked by way of explanation.

How much does Virgin Australia WiFi cost?

Aside from those passengers eligible for free Virgin Australia WiFi, everyone else will have to pay a “nominal fee” – although the airline has not yet revealed how much that will be.

By way of comparison, Virgin’s previous WiFi scheme charged $11.99 for a high-speed connection on any domestic flight.

It’s possible that Virgin will keep the same structure of a single flat-rate fee as a ‘flight pass’ rather than levy a charge based on how many hours a passenger is connected, although what impact this would have on any imposed data caps remains to be seen.

How fast is Virgin Australia WiFi?

While Internet speeds depend heavily on the number of users also connected at the same time, users of Virgin Australia’s previous WiFi system noted that even the free ‘basic’ service could deliver 10Mbps or more.

That’s sufficient for streaming HD video through the likes or Netflix and Stan.

Do I need the Virgin Australia App to use WiFi?

You probably won’t need the Virgin Australia App to use the onboard WiFi – passengers should expect to connect directly to Virgin Australia's onboard WiFi network from any laptop, smartphone or tablet in exactly the same way they would connect to a WiFi network at an airport lounge or cafe, for example.

How does Virgin Australia WiFi work?

Virgin Australia's onboard internet will work through tech provider Intelsat – which acquired previous tech provider Gogo in 2020 – and tap into an Intelsat '2Ku band' satellite.

If you spot these bumps on top of your Virgin Australia plane, then it should have WiFi.

Each Virgin Boeing 737, including the new 737 MAX jets, will sport compatible 2Ku-band antennae which are visible as a ‘hump’ on top of the plane.