V-Flyer

Cabin crew seemed a bit "off", but I realise they may sometimes have to work odd hours.

One young lady particularly frosty, although polite.

A thought which either confirms my ignorance in these things, or might be something Virgin can take up:

I can spend $4 in Starbucks on a coffee and get free wifi. For the life of me, I could not connect at either Heathrow or SFO despite there being "free" open networks listed on my iphone.

Given the amount of airport taxes we are charged, I think it's pathetic if we can't get free wifi there !

Hi and welcome.

Thanks for your post. You posted this as a trip report, but as you have only made one very brief observation about the flight which was crew related, and also commented about the wifi issue, I have just made this a general thread rather than a TR.

Thanks,
Neil

There is no free public wifi at LHR unfortunately.

There is a network along the lines of freepublicwifi but it never works at any location I have ever seen it.

At SFO I recall there being free wifi, but you need to fill out a survey first before it grants you access.

I don't understand the link between airport taxes and wifi. I mean given all the taxes I pay I might expect the government to give me a free massage but they don't do that either the sods.

McMaddog wrote:I don't understand the link between airport taxes and wifi. I mean given all the taxes I pay I might expect the government to give me a free massage but they don't do that either the sods.

me too

Airports charge a passenger service fee (not tax - only governments can impose taxes) to the airlines (and thus us) but that's to process us through the airport and pay for maintenance and development works.

They are not under any obligation to provide free wifi if they don't want to.

Wifi maybe available in airline lounges but that will be paid for by the airlines and so is not the responsibility of the airport operator.

as to starbucks providing free wifi I often wonder how much they actually make from this. I often see people using the wifi sat there for ages having only bought a small coffee. Someday they will realise that having all the seats been taken by wifi freeloaders is actually putting paying punters off from going there and so coting them business.

tontybear wrote:....as to starbucks providing free wifi I often wonder how much they actually make from this. I often see people using the wifi sat there for ages having only bought a small coffee. Someday they will realise that having all the seats been taken by wifi freeloaders is actually putting paying punters off from going there and so coting them business.

Given the massive mark ups that Starbuck's get away with charging for that small coffee, it will be a long time before I feel sorry for them. 8D

I agree there are some freeloaders, but there are a lot of people, like me, who mainly go into Starbucks for the free wi-fi.

In the US you don't even have to have a Starbuck's card to get free wi-fi now, so I assume they have worked out the policy is cost effective.

Nick

Several places have free wifi in this country, McDonalds, Taybarns, Moto Service stations....

I can see issues with bandwidth at airports though....

Nottingham Nick wrote:

tontybear wrote:....as to starbucks providing free wifi I often wonder how much they actually make from this. I often see people using the wifi sat there for ages having only bought a small coffee. Someday they will realise that having all the seats been taken by wifi freeloaders is actually putting paying punters off from going there and so coting them business.

Given the massive mark ups that Starbuck's get away with charging for that small coffee, it will be a long time before I feel sorry for them. 8D

I agree there are some freeloaders, but there are a lot of people, like me, who mainly go into Starbucks for the free wi-fi.

In the US you don't even have to have a Starbuck's card to get free wi-fi now, so I assume they have worked out the policy is cost effective.

Although I was at one Starbuck's in Petaluma Mall in California to do OLCI for my Virgin America flight (and to try and get a cheap upgrade) and there was no wi-fi available v(

I go to coffee houses to work. Paying for the coffee gets me workspace and 'free' wifi. I normally spend $10 a day at the coffee house. Local desk spacing place is $20 a day... It's cheaper!

Shame about the FA I guess they are just not able to have a bad day because we all have an expectation of service - hazard of the job, I guess

The free wi-fi in San Francisco doesn't require the survey right now (BOS does force you to either take a survey or watch an ad), you do however need to go to screens where you hit some "Accept T&Cs" check boxes; the screens aren't always handled well by hand held devices like an iPhone or iPod, it sometimes takes a few minutes for the screen to come up nicely and for you to navigate through the fiddly things you need to do to get wifi to work. I couldn't do it last Wednesday on the long walk from my UACO flight at furthest gate, and the curb

Also keep in mind that there are often networks with names like "Free Public Wifi" which are NOT the official free wifi networks at the airport, and won't work that well, if at all. Definitely a source of some frustration to me that I often need to spend 15 minutes to get wifi set up correctly on a device in the airport.

I agree there are some freeloaders, but there are a lot of people, like me, who mainly go into Starbucks for the free wi-fi.

In the US you don't even have to have a Starbuck's card to get free wi-fi now, so I assume they have worked out the policy is cost effective.

Nick

Heck, you don't even have to go in - can sit in your car outside and pick up wifi!