Comparing Emirates OnAir WiFi with Qatar's Starlink WiFi

Well, there's obviously no contest. No contest at all: Qatar's Starlink connectivity wins hands down.

I'm currently sitting at 39,000ft at 0.84 Mach on a fabulous Emirates A380. I've always been a fan of the size and space afforded to customers (whatever the class) on the A380 – and I do think Emirates always offers a super, consistent service. 

Every one of the 800+ passengers on this jet had to mess about with downloading various things to offline storage before they got on the plane. This is the deal. Like it was 10 years ago. Exactly as it was 10 years ago. 

Whilst for many that will mean making sure you've got a copy of the latest Netflix series you're going to binge-watch, for me it means having to guess what documents, presentations, PDFs and assets I'm likely to want access to. It also means I'm generally going to be unable to get reliable, usable, access to cloud-based AI services. 

That's because although every Emirates customer (as long as you've joined the free loyalty programme) gets unlimited social networking chatter during the flight, you need to stump up cash for anything else. On my flight today that meant $6.99 for 30 minutes or $16.99 for the full flight. This gets you 'unlimited' internet access – but set your expectations. This means something in the region of 0.50Mbps, occasionally patchy availability and seriously limited options (e.g. no streaming services, or anything that's likely to put pressure on the ultra limited bandwidth to the jet). 

My first 4 Speedtest attempts failed because there just wasn't enough throughput. But, dear reader, I persevered and here we go:  

Contrast this experience with what Qatar Airways offers its customers on virtually all of its jets and it really is night and day. The experience is a marvel.

One of the problems with ultra poor internet signal is that today's operating systems and software is binary when it comes to internet. Either it's there, or it's not. One of the problems I've been having for most of the flight is that my software (Word, for example) keeps hanging because it's trying to load some system or service from the internet - because it can see there's a connection. Only, I'm pretty sure the software engineers who designed this didn't expect the internet connection to have next to no throughput. It's fine if you switch off WiFi - which somewhat ironic as that defeats the point of paying $16.99 for the flight.

A Different Route?

I had to be in Dubai this week and gave a serious amount of thought to flying there via Doha. Simply because I'd be able to use the 7ish hours on the plane properly from a work perspective. This would turn a 7-hour trip into a 10-hour trip... eventually I relented, but not before gritting my metaphorical teeth at the prospect of a low-fi WiFi experience. 

It's quite amazing how the dial has shifted in terms of experience priorities for me. Just being able to get a WhatsApp or Email message through used to be something of a novelty. 

Nowadays, there's a reason Qatar is leading the field. It's stupendously quick. 

If I was heading somewhere else then I'd have definitely prioritised (by a country mile) flying with Qatar Airways. Dubai... well... yeah. I decided to skip the connection and brave the LoFi. But if I was heading to anywhere else and connecting through the Gulf, then Qatar would have been my choice for this simple reason. 

So if you're curious about the experience on Emirates? It generally works. Make sure you're patient. Expect to reload a few times if you're looking at something on Google. You should be able to WhatsApp reasonably reliably. 

And on Qatar Airways? In many cases, it's likely faster than most home internet connections!