You may find yourself receiving free wifi on American Airlines starting Monday. That’s if you’re traveling on one of more than 50 flights where they’ll be testing the feature in advance of rolling it out across the system.
American Airlines announced free wifi starting next year.
- Like with Delta, you’ll need to be a member of the frequent flyer program
- It’ll be available on narrowbody aircraft, as well as block 2 Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft.
Original 787s and 777-300ERs with Panasonic wifi are not included.
ConciergeKey members don’t have to wait at all. They’ve had free wifi on these planes since the start of the month.
But many travelers won’t have to wait until 2026, either. That’s because American is testing the system in advance of going free on a broader set of flights than the March test.
- May 19 – June 1
- More than 50 daily flights
- On all flights between these cities (in both directions): Charlotte – New York LaGuardia; Dallas Fort Worth – Milwaukee; New York JFK – Los Angeles; Charlotte – San Diego
The airline almost moved forward with free wifi in 2019. Delta pulled back on their free wifi plan at the time because their systems couldn’t deliver the bandwidth needed given the way usage spikes when it’s free. They needed to get bandwidth right first.
Then the pandemic hit. But now it isn’t just JetBlue offering free wifi but also Delta and soon United (which will have the best-performing system in StarLink, once that rolls out). The future of wifi is a service bundled with the cost of a ticket – except, as with American’s Panasonic-equipped aircraft where there isn’t sufficient bandwidth to handle a free service.
Nice! Glad to see the free aspect becoming more and more prevalent is becoming a reality.
I recently flew United on a E175(OO) with free Starlink and it was a game-changer! So fast. Interestingly enough the FA still made the same announcement of $8 for in-flight Wi-Fi. I say I like being offline for a bit when I fly but to be honest, I’m just too cheap to pay to Wi-Fi.
@ Gary — T-Mobile gives fee internet on all out AA, AS, DL, and UA flights except international AA flights so this is a giant yawn.
It’s about time!!
Delta has turned on free high speed WiFi to Europe and it works great
Nope. But I am enjoying jetBlue’s free reliable Fly-Fi across the Atlantic. Honestly, it’s better than most of the competition. If only AA could get it done across their fleet, too.
@ Tim — United has free wifi to the most international destinations, like Greenland, Mongolia, French Polynesia, Taiwan, Singapore, Manila and a bunch of other places where Delta doesn’t fly! Plus, United doesn’t have POS 767-300s!!
@Gene — Oh, come now, we still like those 763s, especially for the easy Main to DeltaOne with GUCs and RUCs depending on the destination. Lie-flat is still lie-flat, even if it’s circa 2005.
“The future of wifi is a service bundled with the cost of a ticket”
Is it really, if Delta and now AA aren’t actually going to be offering that?
It’s not really “bundled with the cost of a ticket” if it’s not free (e.g. Delta charges $10 for nonmembers) but has a 100% discount for frequent flyer members.