{"id":382958,"date":"2026-04-05T09:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T09:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/382958\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T09:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T09:37:08","slug":"aer-lingus-has-begun-its-free-in-flight-wifi-bang-goes-a-rare-oasis-of-tranquillity-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/382958\/","title":{"rendered":"Aer Lingus has begun its free in-flight wifi. Bang goes a rare oasis of tranquillity \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend the first Aer Lingus<\/a> flight operating the Starlink wifi service left Dublin for New York. Good for them. The online connection, to be rolled out \u201cover the coming years\u201d, will be free to all passengers. It is apparently zippy. Lynne Embleton<\/a>, the airline\u2019s chief executive, declared it a game-changer.<\/p>\n

Nothing to complain about there. Right?<\/p>\n

Let me have a go. I like a challenge. Someone else can whinge about Elon Musk<\/a>\u2019s role as the mastermind of Starlink<\/a>. Frankly, the news that the process requires the distribution of 10,000 satellites about the thermosphere is so Moonraker-adjacent I can barely put my paranoia into words. Plus, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about and am sure to get told off by those who do.<\/p>\n

No, my only partially performative weariness stems not from anything specific in this week\u2019s news but from a more general concern that one oasis of tranquillity is to be forever disrupted. <\/p>\n

It has taken longer than feared. Airborne wifi has been creeping up on us for years, but it has proved persistently awkward, unreliable and expensive. Many airlines still don\u2019t provide the service at all. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo. Currently, we do not offer wifi on our flights. Sorry,\u201d Ryanair<\/a> tell us on their website. Just a few months ago Michael O\u2019Leary<\/a>, the chief executive of that airline group, got in a \u201cspat\u201d with Musk about the attendant costs and complications of Starlink. O\u2019Leary is keen on offering wifi \u201cin the next three to five \u2060years\u201d, but it isn\u2019t there yet.<\/p>\n

A few of us will not be pressing Ryanair to get their skates on. For the past 20 years or so \u2013 since the smartphone rendered the internet nearly ubiquitous \u2013 air travel has provided one of the few reliefs from constant digital connection. Nobody can phone you. Stupid games won\u2019t work. You are unable to update spreadsheets. There is no temptation to indulge in social-media arguments with vapid strangers from Omaha. <\/p>\n

For an hour or two (or three or four or 11) you are cast back into a stillness that, though common just a few decades ago, now feels like an emanation of the dark ages. In a good way. Without the Black Death or the Visigoths.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Elon Musk calls Michael O\u2019Leary an \u2018utter idiot\u2019 in clash over Starlink wifiOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

There was no better place to wade into a fat Victorian novel. You could sleep without the urge to reach nervously for the phone each time you came to. All disasters could wait until touchdown and the beeping, buzzing return to life of the nagging smartphone. <\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t make airline wifi work. Please don\u2019t put it on every flight. Please don\u2019t make it free. Won\u2019t somebody think of the Levellers?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you don\u2019t have to use it,\u201d I hear you say. That cacophony is the noise of addicts laughing at the suggestion they turn down the offer of a free fix when detained in a metal tube for hours on end. <\/p>\n

Never mind the confinement. If the service really is free, efficient and unbroken then the plane becomes like anywhere else. You may as well set aside an hour or two for offline contemplation when sitting alone at home. <\/p>\n

Ha ha! As if that\u2019s going to happen. Tell it to the hippies and the self-help evangelists. We are weak and are not going to reject the opportunity for voluntary digital enslavement. Have you not noticed what we\u2019ve done to ourselves over the past three decades?<\/p>\n

It seems as if Ruben \u00d6stlund<\/a>\u2019s film The Entertainment System Is Down will not be in the Cannes<\/a> official selection for 2026 when the festival announces its line-up next week. The Swedish director\u2019s feature, apparently delayed until 2027, stars Keanu Reeves<\/a>, Kirsten Dunst<\/a> and Samantha Morton<\/a> in a satire imagining the anarchy that ensues when, well, the entertainment system crashes on a long-haul flight. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Satellite wars: Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink faces competition for global communications networkOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an intriguing idea, but, in truth, the gradual development of the entertainment service \u2013 from a movie with sound provided by headphones that were little more than plastic tubes up to dozens of video options \u2013 offered no change comparable to being put right back in immediate contact with the ghastly world you thought you had escaped when the seat-belt light came on. <\/p>\n

The online embrace is so complete one could easily forget one had left home at all. You are still huddled over the same interface and still hearing the same hectoring beeps. <\/p>\n

In a few years the only place a person will get free of online badgering is when under general anaesthetic. Even then they\u2019ll find a way to get at you as the surgeon is prising out kidney stones. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust wanted to reach out to the part of your brain that has been rendered receptive to texts, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Please revert when the paralysis has passed.\u201d<\/p>\n

More awful things have happened. More awful things still will continue to happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last weekend the first Aer Lingus flight operating the Starlink wifi service left Dublin for New York. Good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[601,72,605,61,60,6922,5673,74879,10726,133136,1899,35998,1390],"class_list":{"0":"post-382958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-aer-lingus","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-elon-musk","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-keanu-reeves","14":"tag-kirsten-dunst","15":"tag-lynne-embleton","16":"tag-michael-oleary","17":"tag-ruben-ostlund","18":"tag-ryanair","19":"tag-samantha-morton","20":"tag-starlink"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}