Qantas Airlines has dumped plans to offer live Internet access on its A380 planes starting next month.

Instead, Qantas said it will instead offer only a limited selection of what it calls "cached Internet content" and access to Web-based email and chat services. The airline said the full Internet service was now scheduled to be available "later in 2009."  It will not say why it has abandoned the full Internet connection plan so quickly.

It could have something to do with the fact that American Airlines, which offers a similar service, has come under fire from customers and flight attendants for allowing its passengers wide open access to surf porn Websites. Last month,AA began offering passengers full in-flight broadband Internet access on its Boeing 767-200 planes for $US12.95 a flight.

The U.S. Association of Professional Flight Attendants last week called on the airline's management to install filtering software to block inappropriate sites, following complaints from flight attendants and passengers.