Free Wi-Fi may be coming to an American Airlines flight near you.
Starting next week, the carrier will be testing free inflight Wi-Fi on three routes: between its hub Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) and Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU); between Charlotte and Jacksonville International Airport (JAX); and between hubs Miami International Airport (MIA) and Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD).
On Friday, American Airline’s Chief Customer Officer, Heather Garboden, released a staff memo outlining the plan.
“Through this test, we’ll be assessing customer take rates for inflight Wi-Fi, evaluating our provider and aircraft capacity, and—perhaps most important—measuring the impact to customer satisfaction,” Garboden said.
Other airlines are also moving forward on similar plans. United currently offers free Wi-Fi for T-Mobile customers and plans to expand it later in 2025 with the Starlink satellite service. Hawaiian Airlines also uses Starlink and JetBlue Airways plans to do so. Delta Air Lines offers free Wi-Fi on most of its domestic routes for its SkyMiles members.
Pressure is mounting on airlines to offer free Wi-Fi for customers, in a parallel to what happened with many hotel chains a decade ago, which moved from charging for the service to offering it for free.
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