Finally: American Airlines Will Make Wi-Fi Free On Most Domestic Flights
American Airlines has the most expensive inflight internet in the United States. Delta and JetBlue offer it free. United, Alaska and Southwest charge $8. American’s wifi can run $17 – $29 per flight, or $49.95 per month. Since I fly them regularly, I use internet on nearly every flight, and for the most part it’s fast I pay the monthly fee.
Now American is introducing free and mileage redemption options for internet, on a subset of their aircraft.
- Redeem miles to pay for internet on ViaSat-equipped planes: with a couple of planes becoming available in “the next few weeks” and that fleet fully available with the option “by the summer travel season.” This is unlikely to represent good value for miles.
- Free ad-supported wifi on ViaSat-equipped planes: ad-sponsored Wi-Fi will also be introduced on Viasat domestic narrowbody aircraft, presumably for limited duration (watch an ad, get 30 minutes). Update: I guessed it was 30 minutes, it is actually just 20 minutes. Even the existence of a time limit was left out of the release, which is sad.
Delta, in contrast, is using free internet to get people to sign up for SkyMiles in order to try to convert them to co-brand cardholders.
American has three service providers for internet, and planes with only one of those providers will feature these options for now.
- ViaSat: Boeing 737 (and 737 MAX); Airbus A321; Legacy American Airlines A319
- Intelsat 2ku: Airbus A320, legacy US Airways A319
- Intelsat Air to Ground (“SlowGo”): Embraer E-170 and E-175, Bombardier CR7, CR9 regional jets;
- Panasonic: Boeing 787_-8 and -9), Boeing 777 (-200 and -300ER)
- No wifi: Embraer E-145 regional jets (American really needs to fix this)
American’s larger regional jets – Embraer E-175, Bombardier CR7 and CR9s – will be getting Intelsat’s high speed wifi. So the free ad-supported and mileage redemption options announced won’t apply to these planes, just as they won’t apply to the current fleet of Airbus A320 and widebody aircraft.
T-Mobile customers receive free wifi from American outside of these plans on domestic aircraft: T-Mobile Magenta Plan customers receive 4 passes per year and unlimited 1-hour uses on American Viasat-equipped planes. Magenta Max customers plan receive unlimited internet on regional Intelsat-equipped planes.
At American’s Media and Investor Day in fall 2017, they announced free messaging. A year later they acted confused, as though they’d never said it. The idea was dismissed internally as too expensive.
Two years later, in summer 2019, American thought they might be forced to offer wifi for free. They prepared to match whatever Delta offered. They didn’t match, but are now coming around to an ad-supported model on most of their domestic fleet.
The key here though is ensuring that there’s enough bandwidth to the aircraft. When wifi is free, usage goes up. I find that American’s internet is so expensive, fewer people use it, and it works better than when I fly Delta where there’s no charge.