Singapore Airlines and Vietnam Airlines Now Sell Travel eSIMs Through Kolet in 2026: Should You Buy Data From Your Airline?

Your next boarding-pass email may come with a data plan attached. French travel-tech start-up Kolet says Singapore Airlines and Vietnam Airlines are now live with its eSIM service, extending an airline-led model it first built in Europe. TTG Asia reported the expansion on October 28, 2026.

"Asia-Pacific came to us before we went to it," Kolet co-founder and CEO Eduardo Ronzano told the publication, noting that both carriers signed on without Kolet opening a single office in the region.

What happened

Kolet, founded in 2024, sells travel eSIMs through other brands instead of competing head-on for direct customers. Its model is business-to-business-to-consumer: an airline (or agency, or insurer) offers Kolet data to its own passengers, either through a hosted, no-code storefront or through an API that keeps the partner's branding.

The European deals came first:

• Air France-KLM lets Flying Blue members earn and redeem miles on mobile data.
• Virgin Atlantic introduced a free 1 GB data trial powered by Kolet.

Those partnerships caught the attention of Asian carriers. With Singapore Airlines and Vietnam Airlines live, Kolet now wants to sign travel agencies, online travel agencies, travel management companies and insurers across Asia-Pacific, a region where Airalo, Nomad and Klook already sell eSIMs and local operators push their own roaming packs.

One detail stands out for travelers: for selected partners, Kolet lets customers use the partner's app and website without consuming their data allowance. In Kolet's words, even when a passenger runs out of data, they can still check in, pull up a boarding pass or rebook a disrupted flight.

Why it matters to travelers

This is part of a wider trend we have been tracking: airlines, credit cards and hotels bundling travel data into products you already buy. Earlier this month, Air India launched EasyRoam with Tata Communications. Airlines have the perfect moment to sell connectivity: the days between booking and departure, when you are already thinking about the trip.

For travelers, airline-sold eSIMs bring real advantages:

• Convenience. The offer reaches you in the booking flow or a pre-departure email, so you can install before you leave home.
• Loyalty value. Earning or redeeming miles on data can make the effective price lower than it looks.
• Free airline app access. Zero-rated check-in and rebooking is genuinely useful when a flight is disrupted and your data is gone.

But they also come with trade-offs. The airline is a reseller, so the plan behind it is a standard travel eSIM; the price, network quality and limits depend on the underlying offer, not the logo on the email.

What to check before you buy data from your airline

1. Price per GB. Compare the airline's plan with independent eSIM providers for the same destination and number of days. Miles can tip the balance, so value them honestly.
2. Local networks and speed. Ask which carriers the eSIM uses in each country and whether 5G is included.
3. Validity. Does the plan start at installation or on first connection in the destination?
4. Hotspot and fair use. Check whether tethering is allowed and whether speed drops after a daily cap.
5. Multi-country trips. A Singapore-Vietnam-Thailand itinerary needs a regional plan, not a single-country one.
6. Support. Know who to contact if the eSIM does not connect on arrival: the airline, Kolet or the network.

If the airline offer wins on those points, buying it at booking time is perfectly sensible. If not, a dedicated travel eSIM such as HOLASIM, installed before departure, gives you the same "land and connect" experience while letting you compare plans by destination.

The bigger story is that the travel eSIM is becoming invisible: sold by the airline, the bank, the insurer or the app you already use. That is good news for convenience, as long as travelers keep comparing what they actually get for their money.