More than 200,000 people have used Emirates’s free on board internet since October – up 35 per cent of its passengers.

On most of the airline’s Airbus A380s travellers can access 10MB of free data, enough to e-mail, blog, tweet, post on Facebook or browse webpages.

Emirates currently offers Wi-Fi on all of its 56 A380s and 30 Boeing 777s. A retrofit programme is installing capability across the rest of its fleet.

On 51 of the A380s, the first 10MB of data is free, and a token $1 charge is levied for the next 500MB. On all other aircraft, getting online costs US$1.

Until January 1, proceeds from these charges will be donated to the Emirates Airline Foundation to help improve quality of life for disadvantaged children around the world.

“We expect to collect and donate about $40,000 to the Emirates Airline Foundation, but that amount could increase if more users log-on to Wi-Fi between now and the new year,” said Patrick Brannelly, Emirates’s VP for Corporate Communications.

Since Emirates introduced onboard Wi-Fi three years ago, more than 600,000 passengers have used the service.