Major airlines like Delta and United have been partnering with internet providers like T-Mobile and Starlink to provide free in-flight Wi-Fi, and now another airline has swooped in. In the near future, travelers on all American Airlines flights will be able to connect to free, high-speed satellite-based Wi-Fi from AT&T.
There’s a catch but it’s not bad
To access the free Wi-Fi, passengers must sign up for American’s free rewards program, AAdvantage. American Airlines says that you will need to sign in to the aainflight.com portal using your AAdvantage number and password. From there, select the “Free Wi-Fi” toggle, and then you will be connected to the network.
The carrier has stated that the rollout is expected to start later this month, occurring in phases. Nearly every flight should offer free Wi-Fi by early spring. The carrier says more than 900 mainline aircraft are equipped with high-speed satellite Wi-Fi via Viasat or Intelsat. The carrier also claims that the airline has more satellite Wi-Fi-equipped aircraft than any other airline globally.
While this isn’t the first time that American Airlines has offered in-flight Wi-Fi, it improves on its old system by a lot. Before satellite, American Airlines relied on air-to-ground technology for its Wi-Fi systems, which are not only slow but also have limited connections and can be unreliable at times.
Once satellite internet came around, connections became more reliable and faster. But it wasn’t cheap. You could pay $10 per flight or American Airlines used to offer a monthly subscription for frequent flyers (and AAdvantage members, of course), priced at $49.95 per device, while an annual subscription cost $599. Yikes. It was also an additional $100 to add another device to the plan.
