This $1,200 bill for Singapore Airline’s onboard wifi is a reminder that you should just sleep on the plane

It used to be that taking an airplane meant reading a book, watching whatever movies were playing on the single screen upfront, or sleeping like you’ve never slept before. Now, thanks to technology you can do a whole lot more, such as catching up on your latest TV show addiction on the inflight entertainment system, playing games on your mobile phone – or using the onboard internet.

It seems like the latter option is still not very advisable, though. Case in point: Jeremy Gutsche, CEO at Trend Hunter, revealed in a tweet and subsequent blog post that he had to fork out an incredible US$1,171.46 on a Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight when he used their onboard wifi.

At that amount, you would think that he was doing some serious video-watching on Netflix, but that wasn’t the case. According to Gutsche, all he did was send some emails and upload a single 4MB powerpoint document. Unbeknownst to him at that point of time, the 4MB upload would take up 13 percent of the 30MB data that was given to him with the US$28.99 sign-on fee.

To their credit, SIA staff replied to his tweet within the day, though with a fairly nonchalant response:

@jeremygutsche Thank you for the feedback. Our colleagues are looking into this with our service provider, and they’ll get back to you soon.

— Singapore Airlines (@SingaporeAir) November 14, 2014

In the meantime, Shangri La, the hotel that Gutsche went to upon arrival, assured him that he wouldn’t get any massive internet charges during his stay: “Shouts out to the Shangri La who welcomed me to my hotel with a note explaining that the internet HERE, is always free.”

See: Thailand now has free wi-fi available at 6 main airports