Lufthansa To Expand In-Flight Broadband Access

Germany's Lufthansa airlines said Thursday that it will soon significantly expand its in-flight broadband service to many more long-haul flights.

The airline's FlyNet service combines a free portal providing news, weather, sports and information about the flight's destination with general access to the Internet provided by Connexion by Boeing. The Connexion by Boeing access requires a fee that is dependent on the length of the flight.

Lufthansa said that it will add the service to half of its flights to and from North America on March 27 compared to the small handful of its long haul flights with the service now.

Specifically, only Lufthansa flights into and out of Charlotte, Denver and Los Angeles have the service. However, the airline said in a statement that flights to and from Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Portland, San Francisco and Washington D.C. will get the service.

Lufthansa was the first airline to start in-flight access from Connexion. A number of other international airlines have since added the service.