Starting today, wifi is free on board most American Airlines flights. They join Delta and JetBlue in offering free wifi, and both United and Alaska are moving to free as they introduce Starlink.
- Free for all AAdvantage members. If you’re not a member, you’ll need to become one to get wifi free onborad.
- Not every domestic plane has this set up today. It’s still rolling out this month, but will be on all narrowbody aircraft (those currently equipped with ViaSat and Intelsat satellite wifi). That includes all two-cabin regional jets as well.
- American reports that 73% of their dual class regional jet fleet currently has satellite wifi. A year ago they had targeted completion by end of 2025, but I understand they ran into supply chain issues.
- Widebodies with ViaSat come later in spring. Widebodies that still have slower Panasonic systems won’t have free wifi.
I’ve asked American what happens with customers who have monthly and annual plans.
- Do they need to cancel these plans to avoid auto-billing?
- Will there be any pro-rata refunds for those who have already paid partial months? Or especially those that have paid annually?
I’m still waiting to hear back on this, so if you’re a monthly subscriber you’ll want to remain vigilant although it’s possible you won’t want to give up your plan until later in the month as buying single flight wifi on planes not yet switched over to free remains expensive.
American’s CEO went from believing wifi bandwidth was expensive and required revenue to generating revenue for it – with an AT&T sponsorship, and by using it to incentivize enrollment in AAdvantage, which they can monetize (especially through their partnership with Citibank).
It took a long time to come to fruition, in part because they’ve changed their perspective in viewing Spirit and Frontier as primary competitors and threats to realize that they need to compete for premium business. At the same time, former CEO Doug Parker explains that their contracts required them to pay more the more bandwidth gets used – and free wifi pushes usage off the charts. So they needed those renegotiated, too.
Ultimately, this is a very positive thing for pretty much every customer except me, since I’m happy to pay to keep use of bandwidth limited to me and a few other customers onboard that are willing to pay. I’m one of the only people I’ve ever seen claim they liked American’s expensive wifi over Delta’s free wifi! On net a great thing to do for customer experience.
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