Spain ranks first in Europe in terms of airport connectivity

After being at the tail end for years, Spain now leads the European ranking of airports with free and in some cases unlimited wi-fi connectivity, thanks to the agreements recently signed by Aena, which are already operating throughout the network.

According to a study by Liligo.com, in 2015 the number of European airports offering free and unlimited wi-fi connection has increased by 8 percent and nearly 90 percent of those offering free connection for at least one hour or more. All of this compares with the úlst report, published in 2012.

In the last two years, most European airports have started to offer free wi-fi connection in their lounges and, in that time, Spain has moved from being at the bottom of the list to the bottom of the list;a has gone from being at the bottom in connectivity at its airports to being one of the few countries in the European Union that since last October has been offering free and unlimited Internet connection. Last Tuesday Aena completed the infrastructure to offer free wi-fi in 46 airports and 2 heliports throughout the country, in some cases without time limit and in others for half an hour.

Of the total number of national terminals with free wireless connection, 19 are unlimited time and the remaining 9 are the first half hour. At European level,France is the second country in the ranking, with 27 airports with free connection, and the third is Finland, with 22. 82% of European airports set no time limits, compared with 17% that offer a free service for an hour or more.

The forms of connection are diverse. In 75% of airports it is necessary to register on the web to access the service. Another way, mainly used in German airports, is to send an SMS to receive a message giving the password to access the Internet.

In order to carry out this study, the free Internet offer on the official websites of the international airports of the 27 EU countries, plus Russia and Switzerland was analyzed. In total, information from more than 250 official European airport websites has been included.

According to Mario Gavira, managing director of Liligo.com, “Spanish travelers value very much having connectivity at all times and airports are places where we generally have to wait, and if it is with Internet these waits feel much shorter”.