Spirit Airlines has announced that it has reached an impressive milestone when it comes to installing Wi-Fi throughout its fleet.
In this post:
All Spirit Airlines A320s & A321s have Wi-Fi
A few years back, Spirit Airlines announced it would become the first major ultra low cost carrier in the United States to offer inflight Wi-Fi. The airline has now reached an impressive milestone — all Airbus A320s & A321s now feature Wi-Fi.
Unfortunately that doesn’t quite mean that all of Spirit Airlines’ fleet has Wi-Fi, though. Spirit Airlines hasn’t installed Wi-Fi on its Airbus A319s, and no decision has yet been made as to whether or not these planes will get Wi-Fi.
Spirit Airlines’ fleet currently consists of roughly 180 planes, and 31 of those are Airbus A319s, meaning that currently around 80% of the fleet has Wi-Fi. Spirit has well over 100 A320neos & A321neos on order, and those will all be delivered with Wi-Fi as well, so the percentage of planes with Wi-Fi will continue to increase.
Spirit Airlines has partnered with Thales for Wi-Fi, and the high-speed connectivity works across Spirit’s network in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This Wi-Fi is fast enough to offer streaming, and Spirit promises an “at-home level of experience in the air,” though I imagine that might be a stretch at times.
By September 2022, Spirit will offer the fastest Wi-Fi service of any US-based airline, as the company’s FlytLIVE-enabled planes will be connected to the new SES-17 satellite.
How much does Spirit Airlines charge for Wi-Fi?
Spirit Airlines has two different Wi-Fi pricing plans, and the cost is based on the duration of the flight:
- There’s the browsing plan, ideal for browsing the web and staying in touch via email, chat, and social media; this starts at $2.99 per flight
- There’s the streaming plan, ideal for streaming and more, with speeds that are 20x faster than the browsing option; this starts at $5.99 per flight
Wi-Fi can always be purchased onboard by connecting to the “Spirit_WiFi network,” or by opening your web browser and going to spiritwifi.com.
Spirit is now also making it possible for guests to purchase Wi-Fi at the time of booking — this is available on spirit.com as of July 13, 2022, and through the Spirit mobile app as of August 10, 2022. In both cases this is valid for flights as of August 24, 2022. Those who pre-purchase a plan will receive a voucher code that can then be used on the flight.
Bottom line
Spirit Airlines has completed installation of Wi-Fi on all A320 & A321 aircraft. This means that roughly 80% of Spirit’s fleet has Wi-Fi, with the only planes not having this feature being the A319s. This is an impressive milestone, as Spirit is the only ultra low cost carrier in the United States to offer Wi-Fi. And best of all, Spirit’s Wi-Fi system is also really fast and has widespread coverage.
As I (coincidentally) wrote about earlier, Spirit having Wi-Fi is a major point of differentiation compared to Frontier.
Have you used Spirit’s Wi-Fi, and if so, what was your experience like?
I recently flew on a wifi-enabled Spirit plane. the wifi does not offer complimentary texts (like almost all airlines do). The wifi does offer the menu and the flight map complimentary.
If Spirit offered entertainment as well as other items as part of the wifi package then it would be more of an incentive - but I do not see someone who paid a low cost to fly on Spirit to spend the money on wifi only
Good things like this make is so sad that the management of the company has given up and just want to sell it for spare parts. They have the ability to run a successful company - too bad the management doesn't want to. Good wifi will be great while it lasts.
OMAAT has a lot of pro-Spirit propaganda today
And why not? The big carriers still think that $20 is a reasonable minimum price for a 45 minute flight. Surely reasonable, high quality wifi is something to celebrate.
I work for Spirit. We do in fact have WiFi on some of our 319’s.
@ Guest -- Hmmm, then seems Spirit's press people haven't been made aware of that? The press release about Wi-Fi says the following:
"The expansion of Wi-Fi functionality to Spirit's existing A319 sub-fleet will be determined at a later date."
I’ve been on at least 2 of our 319’s with WiFi. Communication within the company is not always exceptional.
Looks like there's 4 319's with wifi but alas, no date determined for other 319 installs
Now they can live stream their arrest and brawls in flight. This is not going to end well.
For only $19.95 you can blow up social media through our in-flight wifi