Just how badly do you want to stay connected above the clouds? Enough to swap your free inflight glass of wine, whisky, gin or even Champagne for a gratis serve of WiFi?

One in two passengers would make that trade, according to a survey conducted by satellite Internet provider Inmarsat – which leads us to suspect the other 50% of travellers would prefer happily sip on that drink and reflect on life at 40,000 feet without the real world intruding.

Other findings from Inmarsat's fourth annual worldwide Inflight Connectivity Survey, conducted by market research company Populus, are more predictable, but also far more positive for airline embracing sky-high WiFi. 

78% of passengers across the Asia-Pacific region say they "would be more likely to rebook with an airline if high-quality inflight WiFi was available". We suspect that 'high-quality' – meaning a fast, stable and reliable connection – is the key here.

International WiFi often dawdles at 2Mbps or even less, but Qantas and Virgin Australia are now chalking up speeds of 10-15Mbps on their domestic services, while a new wave of broadband WiFi such as Qatar Airways' Super WiFi delivers a very useable 5-8Mbps.

Business travellers are serious about using inflight Internet to turn flying time into productive time, with 88% saying they "are likely to work on a plane to be productive if inflight WiFi is available."

In fact, a claimed 86% of all passengers would use inflight WiFi if it was available on their next flight – with that number rising to 92% among business travellers.

This shows a growing acceptance of and appreciation for inflight Internet, compared to a reported 72% of passengers who had access to inflight Wi-Fi in the last year having used it.