American Airlines is enhancing its wifi connectivity for members of its AAdvantage loyalty programme, introducing the option to use miles to pay for wifi onboard.
The airline said that it will roll out the option to redeem miles for inflight wifi “in the next few weeks on a couple select aircraft”. This will be available on all of the airline’s Viasat-equipped narrowbody aircraft by the summer travel season. Note that American Airlines does not offer free access to wifi, with fees starting from US$10 depending on the route.
The airline said that the wifi enhancements will be powered by a newly designed inflight portal, which will have a sleeker design with a more “user-friendly” purchase process promising “fewer clicks” and “strategic pop-up messaging”. The portal will also be easier to navigate, according to the carrier, and highlight wifi, entertainment and partner offers on a single page.
There is already free ad-sponsored wifi option across American’s Viasat domestic narrowbody aircraft, and the airline will also begin to install high-speed wifi on nearly 500 dual-class regional aircraft this summer.
At the start of the year American Airlines outlined a number of new and forthcoming updates to its AAdvantage loyalty programme, including the option to claim bonus Loyalty Points when reaching selected Loyalty Point Reward levels. Find out more:
Last year American became the first airline to allow streaming on its entire mainline fleet, and highlighted that it updates approximately 200 titles monthly according to “current entertainment trends, customer feedback and data analysis”. Examples include the ‘Award Nominated’ channel which features some of the 2024 winners and nominees from the recent awards circuit.
The carrier also has a partnership with Apple TV+, offering customers a free two-month subscription to continue watching Apple Originals that they started inflight.
For more information on inflight wifi across a number of carriers, see our feature:
