As announced in November, Malaysia Airlines has made its in-flight complimentary WiFi available to all passengers, regardless of cabin class or loyalty tier. However, the service is currently offered on the airlines’ wide-body aircraft at this time, which means that only those flying internationally will be able to enjoy it throughout their journeys.
Fortunately, a very recent assignment required me to travel overseas, therefore provided me with the opportunity to test out the service during my return flights with the airline. But before I share my experience, here’s a couple of things that you need to know first.
For starters, you’ll only know if your Malaysia Airlines flight offers in-flight WiFi during the pre-flight announcement, or from the MHConnect sticker that’s displayed near the in-flight entertainment (IFE) system in front of you. Another thing to keep in mind is that the service will only be activated once the flight reaches cruising altitude, and will be taken offline again upon descent.
During both of my trips, I’ve noticed that the cabin crew did not provide the necessary steps required in order to go online. This has left some passengers confused as, naturally, most would just assume that simply connecting their devices to the flight’s onboard WiFi connection should do the trick. Granted, I’m sure the crew would be more than happy to inform each passenger on how it’s actually done when asked, but I believe such details should’ve been shared during an in-flight announcement.
Thanks to our previous coverage regarding the service, I was prepared on what needs to be done next. Once you’ve connected your device (that’s already set to Airplane Mode) to the flight’s WiFi, open up your browser and go to mhconnect.malaysiaairlines.com. From there, scroll down the page until you see the “Go online” button and click on it, which will bring you to a checkout page. Proceed by pressing “Purchase” in the next page and don’t worry, you won’t be charged anything as the service is offered for free. After that, click “Continue” in the page after and a series of on-screen processes will commence. Once that’s done, you are now fully online.
While you’re not required to sign up or log in to your Malaysia Airlines account to use the onboard WiFi, you still need to provide your email address in order to complete the whole process. Again, the airline has confirmed that the service is complementary, so you don’t actually have to worry about actually paying anything for in-flight connectivity.
As for the experience itself, the in-flight WiFi is actually pretty speedy for web browsing, messaging, and social media. Malaysia Airlines have mentioned that the previous data cap of 100MB per sector will no longer apply, therefore giving passengers unlimited data all the way. While that may be so, I decided not to go all out and stream music or videos throughout the flight.
Everything was surprisingly smooth, though the same can’t be said for the journey back to Malaysia, however. On that flight, the WiFi service was unavailable almost 80% of the time and for the sake of preparing for this article, I decided not to inform the cabin crew of the issue. Reason being that I wanted to see how often connectivity disruptions would occur throughout the three-hour flight and if anything is done to rectify it.
Disappointingly, no actions were taken nor was there an announcement regarding the unavailability of the onboard WiFi service. The only way for me to see whether it is back online or not is by visiting the MHConnect page which I mentioned earlier.
In the cabin crew’s defence, it appears that only a handful of passengers were aware that the flight offered WiFi connectivity, so there’s a chance that no one had informed them regarding the issue. It could also be that the connection itself was spotty or something natural (ie; weather conditions) is interfering, so there’s not much can be done.
The WiFi connection eventually returned much later, but by that time we were already nearing the destination. But hey, that short interval was enough for me to inform friends and family that my flight will be arriving shortly.
In conclusion, the onboard WiFi provided by Malaysia Airlines is pretty decent – but only when it actually works, that is. Connectivity issues aside, my other gripe is that the airlines did not provide much information to passengers on how to connect to the service, which is quite unfortunate for those who are unaware of its availability.
Speaking of which, Malaysia Airlines said that it will subsequently roll out its complimentary in-flight WiFi service to select narrowbody aircraft in phases, meaning that those flying domestic will eventually get the chance to enjoy it as well. However, it did not say when exactly this will happen, so you might have to wait a while longer.
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