American Airlines trials free inflight Wi-Fi before 2026 launch

American Airlines has vowed to offer free inflight Wi-Fi to loyalty members on 90% of its fleet starting in January 2026. But in the interim, the US major is testing the offering on select flights, with the next phase of the trial slated to begin on Monday, May 19.

“We’re kicking off another free Wi-Fi test on Monday that will run through June 1 and offer free Wi-Fi on more than 50 daily flights from CLT, DFW, JFK, LAX, LGA, MKE and SAN,” American Airlines chief customer officer Heather Garboden said in a post on LinkedIn.

“All of this work is helping us get ready to deliver free Wi-Fi, powered by Intelsat and Viasat, to AAdvantage® members beginning in January 2026, sponsored by AT&T. Plus, we’re equipping our regional aircraft with satellite Wi-Fi and already have more than 25% of our regional jets flying with high-speed Wi-Fi today. We’re working hard to outfit our aircraft with best-in-class high-speed Wi-Fi for our most loyal customers.”

These tests will allow American to gauge the strength of its free Wi-Fi service, which has thus far surpassed the carrier’s performance expectations.

Viasat and Intelsat’s geostationary (GEO) satellite-based inflight connectivity systems are installed on American’s mainline narrowbody fleet. And Intelsat’s multi-orbit IFC solution, which uses both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service from Eutelsat OneWeb and Intelsat GEO service, is being installed on the carrier’s two-cabin regional jets.

RGN contributor Jason Rabinowitz recently tried American’s new multi-orbit IFC offering on a Republic Airways E175, flying for American. But it appears that the low-latency LEO portion of the offering was not in use during his flight.

In the US, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are also rolling out free inflight Wi-Fi for loyalty members, with the former in the pole position, having started back in 2023. JetBlue Airways was, however, the first to get the ball rolling; it began providing a complimentary streaming class of Internet service to passengers some 12 years ago.

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