From August 2, all fliers on Swiss International Air Lines (Swiss), the national carrier of Switzerland, will be able to enjoy free use of the internet for chat services such as WhatsApp on all long-haul flights of the airline.

According to a press statement by Swiss, the new facility will be available in all classes of travel, throughout the flight and with no data limit. Passengers wishing to use further internet functions such as surfing, email or social media can choose from two optional additional packages which would be available from CHF 25.

The airline says that now passengers can send and receive free text and picture messages via their smartphone, laptop or tablet throughout their flight. The facility will offer access to all the most popular chat and messenger services such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram.

Tamur Goudarzi Pour

Travellers in Swiss First Class and Hon Circle Members enjoy unlimited internet access throughout their time aloft.

“In offering these new wi-fi options we’re taking a big step forward. With our new unlimited free chat facility in all our travel classes, our guests can keep in contact with their families, friends and business partners throughout their flight. Our attractive new packages for surfing, email and social media also offer unlimited data volumes. So our customers now have even more choice in how they wish to stay in unbounded touch with the world while they are aboard our long-haul flights.” says SWISS Chief Commercial Officer Tamur Goudarzi Pour.

Unlimited data volumes

All the new services – the free chat option and the supplementary Wi-Fi 4 Hours and Wi-Fi Premium packages – offer unlimited data volumes, enabling even data-heavy content to be easily consumed. Only video streaming services will be deactivated, to ensure that adequate bandwidth is simultaneously available for as many passengers as possible. Videos on social media platforms will be playable, however, and audio streaming, cloud services and VPN services will all be offered. All travellers will also be able to read the digital SWISS Magazine on their device at any time, even without activated internet access. Furthermore, passengers can already register for the ‘Travel ID’ and ‘Miles & More’ today to access the new internet service easily and directly in the future and to benefit from various advantages during their journey.