Xrayman

recently I was able to watch and stream an NFL game in replay from game pass.

nearlysober

I got a similar email about 2 hours before a flight on an A319 - it might've been worded a bit differently because I don't think that plane had wifi, just IFE... but anyway, got the message early enough to use the airport wifi to download some Netflix content for offline streaming.

Obviously a bit annoying to have the onboard systems down, but that proactive notification was a life saver

Eurynom0s

100 up, 20 down?

navydevildoc

Sounds about right for the satellite equipped aircraft I have been on. I stream Netflix, Youtube, and stuff off my Plex server all the time when I luck out with one of those planes. I just wish they would get a move on and (a) get it working with iPass and (b) upgrade the rest of the fleet!

flightline87

Flew last Friday EWR-LAX on a 2Ku 737-900 with the WiFi down the entire flight; no advance notice until crew notified us during boarding.

Last night EWR-LAX on a 2Ku 737-900; received an email in the morning that the WiFi was down; worked perfectly the entire flight.

So who knows....

jhurwitz

And apparently that's what just happened to me. Despite the email morning-of saying wifi would not be working, the 2Ku has been working perfectly during the flight.

And it's not due to a last-minute equip swap or anything. We've had the same tail number assigned to this flight for 2 days.

cpworld

I thought the entire fleet was supposed to be upgraded by early 2020, but looks like only a small percentage have been upgraded. Are there issues they are running into, or some other problem? I recently flew to Hawaii and back and expected this would be one of the first routes they would upgrade but sadly not the case... sigh...

missamo80

They upgrade planes, not routes, and there's no guarantee your route will get assigned a plane with satellite wifi. I've lamented many times Alaska doesn't put more effort into ensuring quality wifi on the SEA-SFO flights

53% of the fleet is upgraded at the moment, you can see the stats at https://alaskafleetstatus.weebly.com/.

navydevildoc

They seem to be focusing on the 900ER fleet, which is nice for us Transcon and Hawaii folks. Sounds like you lucked out and got one of the ones left that isn't upgraded. They will get there sooner or later.

jhurwitz

There are only 87 ETOPS planes. They could have focused on reconfiguring ETOPS planes first, since those are likeliest to fly in areas where ATG internet doesn't work. Sadly, it seems like they've been doing quite the opposite though -- in the 737-900ER subfleet, more ETOPS planes remain to be upgraded than non-ETOPS planes.

SNAnghbr

Probably doesn't help that AS is down at least 3 and up to 10 frames by the end of the year with the MAX groundings. While I am not sure if the MAXS were going to be etops or not there is still less slack in the fleet. With less slack in the fleet, etops birds are more valuable as they can sub on more routes that the non etops one. So etops bird get sat wifi at a maintenance check with the others get slotted in earlier.

CalanMan

Though it's true that until the the 2ku install is complete on every frame there are no guarantees, I heard that they actually have been prioritizing frames that are likely to do certain routes. But those routes are transcons to NYC/DC/BOS. Those flights often have high yields with folks on private or government business, for whom having really lousy internet for 5+ hours of a work-on-the-plane day can be a real problem. For most of the year, Hawaii has much lower yields and most people are going on vacation, and while they'd rather have internet than not, having to watch some (free) movies instead of browsing the net just isn't a revenue-diverting problem for them.

I travel to Hawaii for leisure way more than I travel to DC to testify to congress so I'd also much prefer 2ku over the water, but I get the business rationale.

cpworld

I must have misread that before I posted -- maybe I just looked at the first few lines before the 737-900. Any guesses on when the entire fleet will be finished? Is this a 2021 thing, or longer?