Staying connected for the duration of a long-haul flight is great. Being able to consult the map to your hotel or meeting place once you've set foot on foreign soil is even better. Since the two options are not incompatible - far from it - Air France-KLM is innovating by enlisting the services of Bitebird: a 4G wifi box which keeps travellers connected to a personal Internet network while on business trips. This enables the company to make substantial savings in terms of travel costs. roaming applied abroad.
The Bitebird box is offered in partnership with the telecommunications company Transatel, and is already in use in almost all of France.some fifty countries. It comes with a SIM card and offers the advantage - crucial for business customers - of being able to make calls from any mobile phone. individual and secure connection password. Up to 10 devices can be connected simultaneously, including smartphones, tablets and PCs.
The Bitebird box has been available since 20 June for €99.95, plus various data credit offers: €30 for €25, €50 for €40 or €130 for €100. Frequent business travellers can also take advantage of the 4G wifi box with €50 of prepaid data credit for 55,980 Flying Blue Miles.
More than ever, connectivity remains a priority area of work for the various business travel players, including outside their own infrastructures. Avis had already launched a similar offer - albeit on a smaller scale - in June 2014. At that time, the rental company teamed up with XCom Mobile to offer a Wi-Fi box to business travellers to enable them to stay connected during their business trips in Europe.
" End-users demand uninterrupted cellular connectivity when travelling "says Marie-Julie Le Guen, Retail Director at Transatel. " It's a great opportunity for us to showcase our ability to meet this demand. To date, we have signed agreements with more than 100 countries, and we already have coverage in 48 of them. Every month, we add new countries to our network to guarantee travellers access to the Internet at local rates wherever they go. "she adds.
