In flight internet - gogo - fail
 

I tried to use gogo internet on a recent AA flight from SJC - ORD.

At first it seemed pretty easy - copy the link provided and paste into a browser.

From there - nothing. See attached photos.

I summoned help from the (unhelpful) FA, he simply pointed to a card in the seat pocket with similar instructions.

Never got online.

My device (Samsung Galaxy S10+) is brand new, but I've connected successfully to gogo on Delta, with this device and others. Never had this problem on DL, SW, UA, etc.

Any advice should I try this again?
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8977c9f00f.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...efb2298607.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2f74ff0ebd.jpg

You've got me a bit confused here. AA Inflight is the Viasat system. You can access it with with a Gogo monthly pass but through aainflight.com. If it's a Viasat system you should never be trying to navigate to airborne.gogoinflight.com and it's not surprising that that domain name didn't resolve to a valid IP address. If you were unable to connect properly to aainflight.com it looks like a Viasat problem not a Gogo one.

the aa.inflight.com address didn't work either....

Yes, I saw that but I think it’s more of a Viasat fail than a Gogo one.

Having said that, I have generally found the Viasat system to be very reliable.

If you paid for WiFi on that flight I suggest you send in a report to customer services and you’ll probably receive a full refund.

I couldn't get to the point of even paying. I know I was connected to something, though, bc I could connect to AA.com and use the app.

Thx

On occasional aircraft, Internet access will be broken, just like anything else.

if you paid for it, contact AA and get repaid. And possibly some compensation in the way of miles — which the FA can grant on the spot using iSolve on his / her tablet, though they’re actually discouraged from doing so. Link.

It sounds like you were connected to the WiFi hotspot but were unable to log into the network. AA.com worked because it is not restricted at all and will work for anyone connected to the hotspot.

I'm almost willing to bet the issue lies on that exclamation point in your WiFI signal-strength meter; this is Android's way of saying "I am connected to this WiFi point, but because it's apparently not passing any traffic" (because you hadn't logged in yet) "I'm going to ignore this network until I see that it works" (until you log in/etc.)

So you should either pull down notification bar and hit "Log into the network", and if that still doesn't work, go to Settings->Connections->WiFi->Advanced->Switch to Mobile Data->Network Exceptions and add this WiFi network to that; it'll then stay connected no matter what.

Thirdly, the best site to use to get past captive portals is "NeverSSL.com". As the name implies, it doesn't do SSL connections (and therefore the multiple handshakes necessary to validate, which won't work on a connection like yours that's not logged in). The portal will redirect you to a login/code page.

is gogo on mainline craft anymore? I thought they were all switched out to AA Inflight's system? I know Eagle still has gogo as I used it last week hpn-clt. Their mad dogs used to all gogo (free for me with T mobile). God I miss both.

Yes. I think about 150 planes still have and will continue to have Gogo 2Ku service, which is not the legacy Gogo service that's on the Eagle flights.

The only mainline aircraft that still use the old, slower GoGo are the E190s, and those will be retired soon.

However, GoGo 2KU, the high-speed internet, is found on all LUS A319s, A320s, and a few “domestic” 752s.

I had a strange problem that my phone (Pixel 4XL) wouldn't even connect to the AA-Inflight access point. It kept trying to connect, but failing and eventually being disabled.

My Pixel Slate was able to connect, but Chrome would not access any website. I kept getting the webpage saying that the internet was not available. Was able to get to the login website using firefox, but could not access any entertainment. I just gave up. This was on a CR7 both to and from my destination.