Inflight Wi-Fi is an area where JetBlue has been an industry leader, as the airline has been offering fast and free Wi-Fi for well over a decade. With Delta and United both making major progress when it comes to inflight connectivity, it seems like American is being left in the dust (again). With that in mind, what could we see at American in the future?
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American has lost its edge with inflight Wi-Fi
Going back several years, American was the best of the “big three” airline when it came to inflight Wi-Fi. The airline had Viasat Wi-Fi on the most jets, meaning that passengers had access to fast Wi-Fi. Delta and United also charged for Wi-Fi, but had considerably worse systems for inflight connectivity.
This situation has now changed:
- Delta is in the process of rolling out free Wi-Fi throughout its fleet, made possible by the widespread installation of Viasat Wi-Fi
- United has announced that it’s introducing free Wi-Fi as of 2025, as it installs Starlink Wi-Fi
Currently Delta beats American, since it also has fast Wi-Fi, but it’s free. Meanwhile United will beat American once it has Starlink, but it’ll be years before that’s fully rolled out.
When it comes to American, the issue isn’t just that the airline charges for Wi-Fi, but it’a also how much the airline charges. For example, Alaska, Southwest, and United, all charge $8 per segment for Wi-Fi, while American’s pricing is all over the place, and sometimes costs $20+ per segment.
American doesn’t even offer free inflight messaging, aside from the T-Mobile partnership. That’s wild because:
- It’s something that even United offers at this point, with its inferior connectivity system
- American promised several years back that it would introduce free inflight messaging, but then backtracked
American isn’t trying to compete with Delta & United anymore
Back in the day, the “big three” US carriers seemed to match one another on just about everything when it came to product innovations. That no longer seems to be the case.
Delta has long been viewed as the most “premium” US carrier, investing in the passenger experience. But what has changed in recent years is that United is now fully trying to get into Delta’s league, from introducing new cabin interiors, to rolling out free Wi-Fi.
American doesn’t seem interested in competing, as the airline has gone in the opposite direction. American has ripped swanky new interiors out of its cabins to remove TVs, and isn’t offering free Wi-Fi, despite having the bandwidth to do so.
Now look, in theory there could be merit to saying “we’re a more cost focused airline than Delta and United, so we don’t necessarily want to be like them.” But that strategy isn’t working. When you look at the financial performance of the three airlines, Delta and United are way more profitable than American, and there’s no sign of that changing.
American executives have repeatedly said that “the schedule is the product,” meaning that American hopes to capture customers based on the routes it flies, rather than the passenger experience it offers. American also has a pretty narrow definition of “schedule,” as that mainly appeals to those looking to travel domestically from Charlotte or Dallas.
So I’m not meaning to go on too much of a tangent here, but I think this connects back to the Wi-Fi situation. Logically, you’d think that American would feel the pressure to compete with Delta and United when it comes to offering free Wi-Fi.
However, I’m not convinced that the current management team with the current strategy will follow the competition. I suspect the American C-Suite’s view on this is that the airline can’t directly point to where there would be a return on investment by offering free Wi-Fi, and therefore, nothing will change.
My guess is that if American were to offer free Wi-Fi, it’ll happen once the airline has absolutely no choice, which would be a few years down the road, once most United jets have Starlink Wi-Fi installed. I certainly could be wrong, though.
Bottom line
With Delta now offering free Wi-Fi on most flights, and United announcing plans to introduce free Starlink Wi-Fi, it seems like it’s American’s move to improve its Wi-Fi situation. American has high quality Wi-Fi, but the pricing is uncompetitive.
You’d hope that American would make Wi-Fi free, but even if it won’t, you’d think American could at least introduce consistently priced Wi-Fi that represents a decent deal, no?
How do you see the Wi-Fi situation playing out at American?
American will have to offer free Wi-Fi at some point, especially because of business travelers, who will go to DL/UA and cause AA to lose even more money.
But I think the bigger picture that I'm sure everyone will agree with is that American is simply not trying to be premium! This is evident in most areas (removing seatback TVs, reducing seat pitch, reduced buy on board menu, etc.). I recall that earlier this year...
American will have to offer free Wi-Fi at some point, especially because of business travelers, who will go to DL/UA and cause AA to lose even more money.
But I think the bigger picture that I'm sure everyone will agree with is that American is simply not trying to be premium! This is evident in most areas (removing seatback TVs, reducing seat pitch, reduced buy on board menu, etc.). I recall that earlier this year an AA exec said the airline has no plans to offer free Wi-Fi.
Yes, AA is investing in Flagship Business and lounges, but that is probably because they have corporate contracts that they can't afford to lose. If they want to be more profitable, they need to be more premium across the board! And they have the potential to do that!!!
What AA needs to do is fire Isom-who knows absolutely nothing about the airline industry and competitors, and instead gets paid $31 million-and hire an outsider who can truly turn the airline around. It's really sad that at this point there is a night and day difference when flying with DL vs AA
American Airlines should offer, as an AAdvantage benefit, complimentary wi-fi to all elites.
Why should it only be offered to people just because they took out a credit card?
You don’t have to have a credit card to get AA status, but it sure makes it easier. I’d side with Ken that it should be offered free to elites because the other benefits of AAdvantage status have become more and more eroded as time goes on.
Not until Spirit and Frontier do, which is unlikely.
There is just one thing that I can give American credit for nowadays — and that’s coming from someone who has near-zero knowledge of the US aviation industry (being based in South and Southeast Asia) and gets all US-aviation-related knowledge from OMAAT: AA has at least some idea that it’s by no means a desirable airline for most Americans. Therefore it doesn’t make open statements like what Delta did attacking Microsoft to cover up its...
There is just one thing that I can give American credit for nowadays — and that’s coming from someone who has near-zero knowledge of the US aviation industry (being based in South and Southeast Asia) and gets all US-aviation-related knowledge from OMAAT: AA has at least some idea that it’s by no means a desirable airline for most Americans. Therefore it doesn’t make open statements like what Delta did attacking Microsoft to cover up its own failures during the CrowdStrike outage — but that doesn’t seem to have made any negative impact whatsoever to Delta’s C-suite and bottom line, as far as I can see.
you do recall that United very aggressively attacked the DOT and FAA last year when ATC could not support UA's aggressive EWR flight schedule which has since been cut and UA also has very aggressively trashed Boeing - which
cannot deliver anywhere close to the amount of airplanes that UA - or any other Boeing customer - ordered.
Maybe it is that well-run companies expect their suppliers to deliver.
And United cancelled 2.5%...
you do recall that United very aggressively attacked the DOT and FAA last year when ATC could not support UA's aggressive EWR flight schedule which has since been cut and UA also has very aggressively trashed Boeing - which
cannot deliver anywhere close to the amount of airplanes that UA - or any other Boeing customer - ordered.
Maybe it is that well-run companies expect their suppliers to deliver.
And United cancelled 2.5% of their flights in July (second highest percentage among US airlines) compared to 4.2% for DL - so UA was far from unscathed by CRWD.
AA realizes that WiFi isn't going to fix what they need which is a product that consumers want to buy as much or more than DL and, to a lesser extent, UA.
American will have to offer free wifi. It doesn't, until now, because it actually has the best and most reliable of the US3, but that's all changing quickly.
American’s board would benefit from a hostile takeover attempt, like what’s happening at Southwest.
It’s pretty ridiculous that AA charges $29 for wifi on a transcon flight. That’s more than I’ve paid on their oneworld partners JL and CX in flights from the US to Asia.
I can’t see AA rolling out free wifi until they absolutely have to, due to competitive pressures.
Also, Qatar, which charges $10 ($8 for a super discounted rate) for the whole flight, will be available for free between 2024 and 2026.
The best outcome is for American Airlines to enter Chapter 7 bankruptcy and cease to exist as an airline. Post-merger AA/US has ruined the brand to the point of no return.
If there’s one thing EVERYBODY on this website agrees on, it’s that AA sucks.
Yes, because going concerns that turn a profit, though not the strongest ones, are immediate candidates for liquidation. Sounds like you need a lesson in basic economics, you fool.
just to be accurate, AA is guiding to at best breaking even for the rest of the year. They made a "decent" profit in the 2nd quarter after losing money in the 1st quarter and are not likely to make money to any significant degree until the 2nd quarter of 2025 at the earliest.
AA has operated its international network on a breakeven basis and now it is the airline as a whole after years...
just to be accurate, AA is guiding to at best breaking even for the rest of the year. They made a "decent" profit in the 2nd quarter after losing money in the 1st quarter and are not likely to make money to any significant degree until the 2nd quarter of 2025 at the earliest.
AA has operated its international network on a breakeven basis and now it is the airline as a whole after years of generating the lowest profit margins among the big 4.
AA's sales, network. operational and product strategies do not support obtaining high quality revenue and unlike UA, is not trying to fix what makes them lag DL which continues to grow at AA's expense.
There is little reason to believe that AA's profitability will grow to levels that are acceptable.
Also, AA doesn't generate profits high enough to cover the cost of capital - a basic measure of whether a company can or should continue to invest for the future - and it is the only large jet US airline that does not have stockholder equity.