In September 2022, United Airlines began offering free Wi-Fi to eligible T-Mobile customers. As noted by Zach Griff, this was initially only available on select aircraft, but has now been expanded to United’s entire mainline fleet, which is a positive development.
In this post:
T-Mobile customers get free Wi-Fi on United
Eligible T-Mobile customers can receive free inflight Wi-Fi and streaming on United Airlines:
- This is now available on all mainline United Airlines flights, including domestic and international flights with Wi-Fi provided by Panasonic, Thales InFlyt Experience, and Viasat; the only planes not to offer free Wi-Fi as part of this plan are United Express jets with Gogo Wi-Fi, but that’s expected to eventually be rolled out as well
- This is part of T-Mobile’s “Coverage Beyond” program, offering free Wi-Fi on select flights with Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, and United Airlines (T-Mobile also sponsors free Wi-Fi on Delta, but that’s available to all SkyMiles members
- Unlimited free Wi-Fi is available to Magenta MAX customers, while Magenta customers can choose four flights a year where they get unlimited free Wi-Fi, and can receive one hour of free Wi-Fi on other flights
- Customers can text, email, search, and stream, all flight long where available; this applies only to a customer’s mobile device, so you can’t use this on a laptop
As mentioned above, this complements T-Mobile offering free inflight Wi-Fi on select Gogo-equipped aircraft, including on Alaska Airlines and American Airlines. The value of that perk has decreased over time, as American has increasingly switched to Viasat (where T-Mobile customers on American don’t get free Wi-Fi), while Delta now offers free Wi-Fi to all SkyMiles members.
It’s cool that this agreement with United spans multiple Wi-Fi providers. United uses four different Wi-Fi providers, including Gogo, Panasonic, Thales, and Viasat. This is the first time that we’re seeing T-Mobile customers get access to free Wi-Fi on multiple providers.
United Airlines offers all customers free messaging, including through iMessage and WhatsApp, on select flights.
United has a ways to go when it comes to Wi-Fi
As it stands, United is a distant third among the “big three” US airlines when it comes to the reliability and speed of its inflight Wi-Fi offering, though it’s something the airline is working on. Of course free Wi-Fi is nice, so for some customers this feature might take some of the sting out of the reality of United’s Wi-Fi situation.
That being said, I think it’s important to acknowledge that American and Delta both beat United when it comes to Wi-Fi quality:
- While American doesn’t offer free Wi-Fi (aside from promotions), the carrier has the most jets equipped with Viasat Wi-Fi, which is the best product available now
- Delta has increasingly been transitioning to Viasat Wi-Fi, and offers free Wi-Fi to all SkyMiles members on these jets
Then there’s JetBlue, which has been offering free Wi-Fi to all passengers without a catch for a long time.
Bottom line
United Airlines is now offering free Wi-Fi to T-Mobile customers on all mainline flights, ranging from short haul domestic to long haul international flights. This is an exciting development, as it takes some of the sting out of United’s otherwise lackluster Wi-Fi offering.
What do you make of United’s free Wi-Fi for T-Mobile customers?
I don't see anything about signing on via T-Mobile on the United international flights i take. How do you actually use it?
Anyone get this to work with One Plus/One Plus International plan?
United 1K Million Miler here... VERY frustrated multiple times with trying to get WiFi whether it was with T-Mobile or with purchasing WiFi. Last trip was a nightmare where I was flying home to get to the hospital where my wife had just been admitted. I asked the Flight Attendant multiple times for help... and was just patronized to no avail. I could not even use the so-called free messaging. I was an emotional wreck...
United 1K Million Miler here... VERY frustrated multiple times with trying to get WiFi whether it was with T-Mobile or with purchasing WiFi. Last trip was a nightmare where I was flying home to get to the hospital where my wife had just been admitted. I asked the Flight Attendant multiple times for help... and was just patronized to no avail. I could not even use the so-called free messaging. I was an emotional wreck the entire flight. United needs to speed up their efforts for better and easier to access WiFi in todays mode technological world. There's no excuse for them to be so far behind in our medoren times.
Wow T-Mobile is really trying to elevate it's services. Was Delta, now United.
Their latest campaign.
T-Mobile has soared to new heights, annual data breach at 30,000 feet, brought to you by T-Mobile, the fastest nationwide provider to lose your data again and again and again.
T Mobile sponsors DL's high speed Wifi.
United just gets the leftovers.
United got sponsored with T-Mobile wifi months ago, Delta didnt get it until now
And yet Delta connection flights get this. Delta mainline flights get free high speed gate to gate Wi-Fi.
Delta leads. United follows years later
I've been a T-Mobile customer for years, took 4 AA trips last month and did not get WIFI to work on my iPhone 14 once! Any tips are much appreciated!
In theory great. In practice on 6 of my last 8 United flights wifi was not working.
This is my experience on UA also.
I'm using it right now. Speed is good, no issues with connecting. First got a chance to use it when they first put it on the 319s about six months ago. I've been a T-Mo customer for over fifteen years, and this is the best perk I've ever had.
I used it last week on a United 737 Max 8 and on an older Continental plane. I was impressed with the speeds on both flights. Both planes had IFE, so I dodnt use it much however
Used this last week ORDTPA. First time I'd tried it. I copied the instructions before hand, just in case Pretty good for a free plan.
So now T-Mobile customers can enjoy the United airlines wifi experience where you may get regular wifi for the first 5-10 minutes of flight, then not be able to connect at all for the next 2 hours, then receive intermittent service for the following hour, and then resume full usage during the last 20 minutes of service at altitude.
At the very least I wish United had wifi service provider consistency among jet types...
So now T-Mobile customers can enjoy the United airlines wifi experience where you may get regular wifi for the first 5-10 minutes of flight, then not be able to connect at all for the next 2 hours, then receive intermittent service for the following hour, and then resume full usage during the last 20 minutes of service at altitude.
At the very least I wish United had wifi service provider consistency among jet types (e.g. all 737's having Viasat or something like that) but even among aircraft types they are mixed so unless you're on a trans-atlantic/pacific international flight where they are limited to global satellite coverage providers, you have no idea how reliable it will be until you're in flight.
I was a bit surprised when I flew United this past weekend and saw the option being offered. It didn't work for the first... 10 to 20 minutes of the flight but afterwards it worked well enough.
Hoping that the free wi-fi extends to my flights on American in a few months...
I fly United a lot, and honestly haven’t had an issues with wifi. Magenta Max helps for sure, even when I felt the need to pay for it, if reliability was an issue a refund was always promptly issued.
I used to be a Sprint customer and am now a T-Mobile customer after the merger and when I try to access the free Wi-Fi on United flights, it says my plan is not eligible
Agreed, I get the same on Delta too. Unless it's a Magenta plan (which mine is not, it's an old legacy plan), it doesn't seem like it will work.
I’m on a legacy Kickstarter plan for $30/month and it just worked on some AA flights.
I’m on a legacy Simple Choice North America plan and have never had any issues
It works on the equivalent plans if your account has been migrated to the tmobile billing system, but both tmobile and united are very unclear what those are. All Sprint accounts will be on tmobile billing by summer (billing doesnt affect what you pay or what your plan does, just how it shows up on their systems)
IE, Magenta MAX is obviously Sprint Unlimited Max, but I believe Everything Data counts as Magenta and so forth.
You basically have to upgrade to a plan that starts at around $300 per month. In our case (family plan migrated from Sprint), it was about $100 a month more. I just downloaded Netflix episodes over the hotel wifi prior to our return. We had free Jet Blue wifi on the way to our destination. No issues.