Friday, March 15, 2013

United Finally Has Wi-Fi in Asia

United Wi-Fi

When I was on the jetway to board this last leg home, the first thing I noticed was that the plane still had the old United logo on it, making me worry that this was one of their older planes. And then I noticed something else near the door: a Wi-Fi logo. Cool - it looks like their in-flight Wi-Fi rollout has finally made its way to some of the planes in Asia. The home screen's layout was similar to Southwest's, complete with flight information.

Unfortunately, being in First Class didn't make them waive the access fee (nor did being a 1K/Million Miler), as it still brought me to a page asking for a credit card. And I couldn't roam on iPass either. But admittedly, I didn't actually end up needing it on this shorter evening flight when I had already cached everything that I needed locally anyway. This would have been more useful on the other legs when it was actually during business hours and would have helped to have been connected.

Speaking of First Class, it was interesting to see that the First Class section of the United Club in HKG wasn't that much different from the normal (and bigger) section. The only thing that really stuck out was the fact that an attendant brought a menu to you in case you wanted to order any snacks a la carte, but I passed on those. And the meal on this shorter flight wasn't that different from Business Class either. I guess it was more of the long haul where the pampering really matters.

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