American Airlines Links Up With ViaSat For In-flight Wi-Fi

American Airlines has decided against expanding Gogo’s reach as its in-flight Wi-Fi provider, choosing to go with ViaSat instead. The two companies have inked a deal which will see satellite-powered Wi-Fi coming to 100 American Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX airplanes by September 2017. Gogo continues to be an in-flight Wi-Fi supplier for American on some of its other planes but ViaSat now has the bulk of its 737 MAX fleet.

Prior to the announcement of this deal, there were some tough negotiations between American Airlines and Gogo but nothing came of it.

Gogo’s in-flight Wi-Fi service often receives mixed reviews so naturally American would have gone with the option which ensures the happiness of its customers, among other things. Nevertheless, Gogo and American Airlines will continue to work together.

Under this deal, ViaSat is going to hook up 100 American Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX airplanes with its satellite-powered Wi-Fi service. It promises to provide 12Mbps to each seat, enabling users to access “at home” multimedia streaming options. These new planes will be connected to the company’s ViaSat-1 and ViaSat-2 networks, with the even faster ViaSat-3 network launching in 2019.

Meanwhile, Gogo will continue to provide in-flight Wi-Fi service to quite a few planes in the American Airlines fleet, including but not limited to 134 Airbus planes.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Transportation
Tags: american airlines, in-flight