Make 'no Wi-Fi' an airline sales pitch

Air India became the first domestic airline to introduce in-flight Wi-Fi in January 2025. It was hailed as a triumph of tech dishing out yet another invaluable service for the air, especially business, traveller. More than a year on, we're not too sure if it's a value-add. Flights have long been the last bastion of disconnection, rare interludes when executives could plead tech-disabled '5th amendment' - emails unsent, calls unanswered. It was a socially and professionally acceptable pause, a liminal space between departure and arrival. No companies went into red because of messages going into voicemail.

The argument for airborne internet is efficiency. Why waste 6 hrs between Delhi and London when deals can be struck mid-air? But productivity gains are marginal, while costs - psychological and cultural - are profound. The enforced break of a flight is restorative. It's the rare chance to think without notification, reboot, and recall that life is not merely a sequence of meetings. For international business-class travellers, especially those in first class, Wi-Fi-less hours are not a deprivation, but a privilege that comes with the glass of champagne, fine dining and hushed privacy. These individuals are the most relentlessly connected. A long-haul flight offers the only legitimate excuse to 'vanish' without guilt. Wi-Fi can only undermine this much-deserved experience.

Airlines tout connectivity as progress. In truth, it's annexation of yet another frontier by the more manufactured aspects of work. Skies should remain a refuge. Business travellers, of all people, deserve the luxury of being unreachable at 35,000 ft. In fact, airlines should sell their passengers being temporarily unreachable as one of their invaluable services.