{"id":242539,"date":"2026-05-26T15:44:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/american-airlines-to-add-starlink-wi-fi-service-to-its-planes-the-points-guy\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T15:44:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:44:37","slug":"american-airlines-to-add-starlink-wi-fi-service-to-its-planes-the-points-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/american-airlines-to-add-starlink-wi-fi-service-to-its-planes-the-points-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"American Airlines to add Starlink Wi-Fi service to its planes – The Points Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"


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American Airlines is upping its inflight Wi-Fi game in a big way.<\/p>\n

Just months after making its on-board internet free for most passengers<\/a><\/span>, the Fort Worth-based airline on Tuesday announced plans to upgrade its connectivity with satellite service from Starlink.<\/p>\n

Installations will begin early next year.<\/p>\n

Around 500 of the airline’s single-aisle planes will get the ultra-fast service. That’s far from American’s entire fleet, but it will certainly allow the airline to offer an improved browsing experience for passengers on a sizable portion of its jets.<\/p>\n

“The addition of Starlink solidifies American as a leading airline in keeping passengers connected in flight,” American’s chief customer officer Heather Garboden said in a statement announcing the news.<\/p>\n

From free Wi-Fi to upgraded tech<\/h2>\n

American is far from alone in making this pivot.<\/p>\n

So far in 2026, we’ve seen airlines across the U.S. race to upgrade their Wi-Fi tech after most made the service free to customers.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Southwest Airlines said it would soon offer Starlink<\/a><\/span> on hundreds of its aircraft after making its inflight internet free to loyalty members last fall.<\/p>\n

More recently, Delta Air Lines signed on to Amazon’s satellite service<\/a><\/span> to upgrade the Wi-Fi tech on many of its planes.<\/p>\n

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Now, American is getting set to upgrade its Wi-Fi. The move comes just months after the airlinen ditched its internet fees on most jets<\/a><\/span> and started offering complimentary browsing to all AAdvantage loyalty members.<\/p>\n

American’s Starlink plans<\/h2>\n

American said it plans to outfit its Airbus planes with the Starlink satellites, including all of its new Airbus A321XLR<\/a><\/span> and A321neo deliveries.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t immediately clear how long the rollout would take.<\/p>\n

Based on that announcement, it appears the airline’s existing Boeing 737 (and 737 MAX) fleet would continue using the carrier’s existing service from California-based provider Viasat.<\/p>\n

Starlink, part of SpaceX, is easily the fastest on-board Wi-Fi offered by any U.S. carrier today. It relies on constellations of satellites orbiting Earth at lower altitudes to deliver an on-board browsing experience that feels a lot like surfing the internet on the ground.<\/p>\n

United Airlines and Alaska Airlines are currently rolling the technology out across their respective fleets. Hawaiian Airlines already offers Starlink on its Airbus jets.<\/p>\n

Bottom line<\/h2>\n

American did not detail any plans on Tuesday to close the biggest remaining gap in its Wi-Fi offerings: its large twin-aisle jets.<\/p>\n

Many of those planes, including American’s Boeing 777s and older 787 Dreamliners, still offer legacy Panasonic service that’s expensive; I’ve regularly paid $35 for a transatlantic flight. I’ve also found the service to be far from reliable on a handful of recent flights.<\/p>\n

Related reading:<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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American Airlines is upping its inflight Wi-Fi game in a big way. Just months after making its on-board internet free for most passengers, the Fort Worth-based airline on Tuesday announced plans to upgrade its connectivity with satellite service from Starlink. Installations will begin early next year. Around 500 of the airline’s single-aisle planes will get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":242540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-242539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}