Inflight WiFi Comparison 2016

By now, most flyers are used to having the opportunity to stay connected while inflight. It’s not always fast or economical so I’ll compare my WiFi experiences over the past 12 months amongst multiple airlines and aircraft around the world. It’s come a long way since my last post in 2014. For a reference, typical speeds of your cell phone while on 3G is ~1Mbps and on 4G LTE is ~10Mbps.

 

American Airlines

Aircraft: B777-300ER
Provider: T-Mobile
Download Speeds: 0.67 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 0.18 Mbps
Pricing: USD 19.00
Usage Limits: Unlimited

Aircraft: A321S
Provider: Gogo (Hybrid Solution: ATG4 & Ku-band)
Download Speeds: 14.75 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 0.20 Mbps
Pricing: USD 16.00 (3 hour flight)
Usage Limits: Unlimited

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ANA (All Nippon Airways)

Aircraft: B787
Provider: Panasonic
Download Speeds: 5.80 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 0.22 Mbps
Pricing: USD 21.95
Usage Limits: Unlimited

Aircraft: B777-300ER
Provider: OnAir
Download Speeds: ~0.25 Mbps
Upload Speeds: ~0.10 Mbps
Pricing: USD 19.95
Usage Limits: 100MB

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Emirates

Aircraft: A380
Provider: OnAir
Download Speeds: 0.37 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 1.49 Mbps
Pricing: USD 1.00
Usage Limits: 500MB

Aircraft: B777-300ER
Provider: OnAir
Download Speeds: 3.86 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 0.52 Mbps
Pricing: USD 1.00
Usage Limits: 500MB

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Etihad

Aircraft: B787-900
Provider: T-Mobile
Download Speeds: 2.29 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 1.02 Mbps
Pricing: USD 21.95
Usage Limits: Unlimited

Aircraft: A380
Provider: T-Mobile
Download Speeds: 1.00 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 1.88 Mbps
Pricing: USD 21.95
Usage Limits: Unlimited

 

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JetBlue

Aircraft: A320
Provider: Fly-Fi (ViaSat)
Download Speeds: 11.57 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 0.59 Mbps
Pricing: USD 0, Fly-Fi+ is $9/hr
Usage Limits: Unlimited

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Singapore Airlines

Aircraft: A380
Provider: OnAir
Download Speeds: ~0.25 Mbps
Upload Speeds: ~0.10 Mbps
Pricing: USD 19.99/12.99
Usage Limits: 50MB/30MB

Aircraft: B777-300
Provider: OnAir
Download Speeds: ~0.25 Mbps
Upload Speeds: ~0.10 Mbps
Pricing: USD 19.99/12.99
Usage Limits: 50MB/30MB

Aircraft: A350-900
Provider: Panasonic (T-Mobile)
Download Speeds: 4.14 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 0.26 Mbps
Pricing: USD 21.95
Usage Limits: Unlimited

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Virgin America

Aircraft: A319/320
Provider: Gogo ATG-4
Download Speeds: ~2.00 Mbps
Upload Speeds: ~0.50 Mbps
Pricing: USD 4.95-21.95 (depends on length of flight)
Usage Limits: Unlimited

Aircraft: A320 ETOPS
Provider: ViaSat
Download Speeds: 11.83 Mbps
Upload Speeds: 0.54 Mbps
Pricing: USD 4.99-17.99 (depends on length of flight)
Usage Limits: Unlimited

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Winners

Fastest Download Speeds: American A321S

Fastest Upload Speeds: Etihad A380

Overall Best Inflight WiFi Airline: Etihad

The rollout of Gogo’s 2Ku satellite is pushing over 50Mbps down to the plane which will be a nice boost and heats up the competition for ViaSat’s speed which pushes 12Mbps per device therefore not diminishing the speeds as more users connect due to a high capacity satellite link. It’ll be nice to try JetBlue’s Fly-Fi service (ViaSat-powered)  on my upcoming mileage run flight to get the 75,000 TrueBlue points with the recent Virgin America match.