Lufthansa is to become the first airline to offer its passengers onboard internet access, news reports said on Tuesday.
Passengers on a B747 jumbo jet flying the Frankfurt-Washington route will be able to read e-mails, surf the web or transmit data using the Connexion by the Boeing service provider installed on the plane.
A full-page report in the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper said the service was developed at Lufthansa’s technical support centre in the northern German city of Hamburg.
The Connexion by the Boeing server is linked with stationary satellites orbiting 36 000 kilometres above the earth which relay the Internet message to ground stations around the world.
The 380-seat B747-400 jet, named ”Sachsen Anhalt” after the German state of Saxony Anhalt, was outfitted in work starting a year ago. Some 80 kilos of high-tech computer equipment as well as 230 kilos of cables had to be installed on the plane.
The system underwent its first in-flight tests on October 25 without the passengers noticing, engineers said. A system to offer voice transmission services over the internet connection is already in the planning and development stage, they said.
Lufthansa plans to have all its long-range aircraft equipped with the onboard Internet provider system by 2004. – Sapa-DPA