In Flight Internet
 

So I haven't flown a full pre-purchased F fare in awhile with AS. Usually getting into F has been from paid check in upgrades. Looking on AS's web site (to see if they had different F class perks/service between the Boeings and the E175s) I noticed that they advertise "Inflight Wifi" on the "Experience First Class" page. This isn't an included service, is it? I thought internet had to be purchased. I'm a little surprised they're advertising it like a F perk when they don't mention anywhere on that experience first class page that it's an additional price. It's like all of a sudden if they listed on the F page that you had premium food and beverages but then didn't say that you have to buy all of it...

Has something changed, or always been different on a non-upgrade F fare, or is it just crappy advertising on AS's part?

Inflight internet isn't free for Y or F...although even if it was free, I'm still not sure it's worth it since it's so painfully slow. Every time I try to use the "free" AS website inflight, I'm reminded why I would never consider paying for access to the rest of the internet....still, people pay for the lousy service so I guess they're more patient than I would be or they enjoy watching the spinning circles while waiting for a page to load :rolleyes:

Yeah Gogo is slow on AS flights. Hoping that the new system helps with the speed. Not worth paying for unless you already had a monthly plan.

Plus, you don't have to pay to use certain messaging services in flight, like Snapchat

That's why I thought they may have tossed it in as free for first class people.... guess they're just trying to trump up their F product for the unknowing

Anyone else had an issue with having the gogo annual pass and it still forcing you to buy a flight pass?

And now imagine the speed if it actually was free and everyone tried to use it...

I consider air travel quiet time. I honestly don't mind being disconnected for a few hours.

Well F has what, 12 seats or 16 seats max? That wouldn't be too bad, and I'm sure not everyone would make use of it. I like to use it to check out stuff for where I'm going, get an idea on traffic conditions or restaurants, that kinda stuff.

Well, the post I replied to talked about Y and F. Do get your point, though, that you'd restrict free Wifi to F. I also agree with your concern that AS' website is somewhat misleading.

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/tr...nfo-firstClass

If I didn't know any better, I would indeed interpret this the way you did. AS should at least add an asterisk with a foot note "fees apply for WiFi access" to it.

Can you point to the web page(s) you think are misleading?

I'm looking at a page - Experience First Class - that describes wifi as available. As should be understood by any American who has bought a new car in the last ~30 years, available means you pay for it, not that the feature is there at no extra cost.

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/tr...xperience.aspx

Use http://m.alaskaair.com instead of their full site, works for the information I am trying to find when accessing.

It's still a crappy way to list it after listing a couple included items unique to F, the extra room and food options. Further, it does imply that some FLIGHTS in their fleet it might not be available, making it seem like there is a hard technical reason, like equipment hasn't been upgraded, etc.

Like I said, I hadn't checked the F page in a long time and hadn't flown a non-upgraded F in forever. Thought it might have been added in since the service isn't very good to begin with and honestly would be a rather cheap addition for AS to offer.

There is one 734 out there that's a dark plane.

I used Gogo for the first time ever yesterday, taking advantage of T Mobile's free hour per flight. Was fine for checking email and such, however ... a bit frustrating that apps were trying to download updates, which I had to cancel manually.

There's a reason the full site is so terrible on the free wifi: it's trying to load scripts and ad trackers on sites that aren't whitelisted, so every single page load hangs until those requests time out. (You might see "waiting for maxymiser.com" messages or the like in your browser.) Block the two or three sites that hang, and all of a sudden the full site is usable again.

m.alaskaair.com is still faster overall.