Wi-Fi on the plane: Here's how in-flight connectivity is changing (and costing)

Rob Pegoraro

Americans are returning to the skies in large numbers – and many of them will find that in-flight Wi-Fi has changed a bit since their last time up in the air.

At three of the four biggest U.S. airlines, using some chat apps is now free, while the cost of connectivity on a domestic flight has fallen to a flat fee under $10. Here’s what you might pay at those four carriers for internet access from a chair in the sky:

Except for some smaller regional jets that still use ground-based cellular service, in-flight Wi-Fi now relies on satellites in geostationary orbit – and keeping an antenna mounted atop a plane flying at 500 mph locked on to a satellite more than 22,000 miles above the equator can be tricky.

Seth Miller, an airline consultant and founder of PaxEx.Aero, cited two common issues: the plane banks or turns, or its tail blocks the signal.

"The former typically resolves pretty quickly; the latter can require switching satellites or flying for a period of time to remove that 'shadow' effect," he wrote in an email.

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Geostationary satellites also can't reach planes that fly too close to the poles, and some services place other limits. For example, the Thales satellite system on most of United’s 737s only covers the continental U.S.

Starlink and its constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites can offer coverage that includes the poles. In April, the SpaceX service signed up its first two airline customers: JSX, a small regional-jet carrier, and Hawaiian Airlines. Both said they would offer the service for free.

Miller predicted that Starlink would offer enough capacity to make free service work but suggested the next couple of years might involve some shakiness as the service continues building its network.

It's unclear if other satellite services will be able to deliver free connectivity to a planeful of data-hungry people, something that only JetBlue provides.

"Delta has said it wants to offer Wi-Fi for free, but it knows that would result in much higher usage onboard and it has worried about the ability to handle that volume," emailed Brett Snyder, who writes the Cranky Flier blog and runs the Cranky Concierge travel-booking service.

Harteveldt predicted that capacity worries would lead most airlines to offer tiers of service: free but slow, cheap but fast enough for work, and pricier but fast enough for video streaming.

And as often happens in air travel, passengers in premium cabins or with sufficiently high frequent-flier status might not have to pay for the high-end service.

Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based out of Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter: @robpegoraro.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Flight WiFi: How cost, connectivity on planes are changing

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