I could do without wifi if they'd have more warm cookies in flight

Starts Tuesday; we all need to chill. :D

Is this domestic itineraries only? Or international too?
Full internet? Or 'messasging' a la Delta.

Is this satire or hyperbole dialed up to 11?

Anyway, I think this perk starts tomorrow (January 6th).

Not all of us AA flyers are members- I am one world emerald with both AS & BA and use T-Mobile.
I don't complain about the food- salt or meatballs and don't eat the cookies. Flight tomorrow.
I guess I will have to join AA today and hope you do not need any status to the free wifi.

DL has free full Internet. They were basically the instigator here. Yes, there are some exceptions (particularly on regional fleet), but they are now up to 1000 frames with it.

Why didn't they get Starlink!?!?

It's like upgrading from unicycle to a tricycle when your competitor upgraded to a Ferrari. What a waste of money investing in outdated technology. I'm certain ATT had given AA some "incentive".

It remains to be seen if Starlink is an actual differentiator. Sure, it sounds cool, but let's see how AA's wifi performs tomorrow. Then, we will have to see how it performs when ViaSat gets their new -3 fleet fully operational. (And AA is evidently looking at LEO for mainline (it's already -at least the hardware- on the upgraded regionals.))

In any event, while there is little question this was a major strategic blunder on AA's part, it has nothing to do with investing in outdated technology. There is very little, if any, investment for them to flip the switch for 'free.' Which is funny (sad funny, not haha funny,) because AA actually led the majors with investing in high-speed satellite wifi on their mainline fleet. They had full, 100% satellite on mainline *years* before the other two. The blunder came from them stubbornly continuing to charge for it long after it was apparent it was a competitive disadvantage.

The free WiFi option did not show up on my flight this morning (on a 319). We’ll see if it is up-and-running by end of day.

No free wifi on MEX-JFK or JFK to DCA (Republic) this morning.

Two flights this afternoon (321 and 737). Will report back.

Personally, my experience with Starlink has been quite negative. I don't find them to be a "Ferrari" compared to a "Tricycle". I think a lot of what Starlink has going for it is branding/marketing rather than actual better service.

oh dear

Starlink where? I have a Starlink mini (for personal use), and I have been in the VSAT/Satellite industry for 25 years... the performance of Starlink vs the VSAT AA will continue to be used for the near future is like comparing dial-up to cable. Were you on a flight where Starlink was not performing well? I place the Starlink mini on my truck's dashboard and get 350 Mbps while driving 80 miles per hour, with a limited view of the sky. JSX and Hawaiian Air flights: the speeds/low latency are unreal compared to Viasat legacy VSAT.
As others have mentioned, AA may pivot to LEO in the future... They have RFPs out there now to retrofit all their planes, but they have no clue what they decided. Given they have some Intelsat equipment, it would be easy for them to pivot to OneWeb for Leo, at least as a trial.
Also, Delta, on some flights is using a Hughes product that can use both VSAT and LEO (Onweb). So latency sensitive applications will go over the LEO and, things like streaming media can go over the VSAT... they call it Fusion.

I don't have the experience you have. However, I used a Sat-Phone with it last year and found the experience dismal. That is my personal anecdote on it.