When wifi first rolled out on planes it was a novelty. GTE Airfone offered email and messaging inflight in the 90s, but the first real inflight internet was from Connexion By Boeing which launched with Lufthansa in 2004 and rolled out to several airlines, before being shut down in 2006.

By the time Gogo service was available on American Airlines, passengers would post to twitter that they were on a plane!

US Airways delayed offering service, but announced in 2012 that they’d finally signed on. Then-airline President Scott Kirby explained that they didn’t think they’d make money selling internet, so they didn’t equip their planes. But they finally saw in the data that customers were booking away from them due to lack of internet, and they had to act.

At the time I wrote that wifi would eventually be free (really, bundled with the price of a ticket) – once there was enough bandwidth that everyone onboard could use it without trading off with quality experience.

Delta was expected to launch this in 2019, but their systems couldn’t actually handle the use that comes from free access. That changed.

Now, JetBlue and Delta offer free wifi. United is rolling it out, and their new system is free. American Airlines will offer free wifi starting in 2026 (ConciergeKey members already have it).

United, though, has one advantage once their system rolls out – it’ll be better than Delta’s and American’s. They’re using Starlink which offers not just true high speed connectivity but almost no latency. The satellites are in low earth orbit. The signal just doesn’t travel as far.

But United wasn’t first with Starlink. That was JSX (part-owned by United and JetBlue). And the first U.S. scheduled airline with Starlink was Hawaiian. I’ve used it on both and it is outstanding.

Incredible. I've gotten as much as 80 Mbps down on this @flyjsx flight with @SpaceX #Starlink internet.

It's like working in my office at home… while airlines generally don't even put internet on their ERJ-145s at all. pic.twitter.com/BlAF6UKRIG

— gary leff (@garyleff) March 7, 2023

Now Alaska Airlines is upgrading its connectivity experience:

• Alaska Airlines bought Hawaiian
  
• And Alaska is rolling out Starlink, too.

Starting next year, Starlink will be free onboard Alaska flights for Atmos Rewards loyalty program members.

• They have a T-mobile sponsorship as part of this.
  
• And it encourages loyalty program adoption, which lets them market to their customers (feeds the top of the funnel for credit card acquisition)

Qatar is adding Starlink. Virgin Atlantic will also. It’s the inflight wifi you want, although I find ViaSat to be adequate as well.

Alaska’s full installation is expected in 2027. Until then, Alaska’s wifi works reasonably well on most aircraft for $8.