I submitted a refund to request to UA for wifi dysfunction on recent SFO-HKG flights. Explained that there had been serious problems in both directions and that wifi had worked, at best, for less than half of each flight. Requested refund of fee for one direction only ($22.99) as fair compensation. After getting refund runaround, e-mailed 1kvoice. Received response next day. Said they do not offer wifi refunds, but gave me a $50 travel certificate. I'm satisfied with the response. But I hope they get the bugs out of the system. I would be very hesitant to pay for it again based on this experience.

Funny that UA is advertising this service all over the plane and now via social media if it has so many problems and is basically unusable for PEK/PVG/HKG flights.

On my HKG flight, it was not working for the entire flight, not just within Chinese airspace. Purser indicated that this was standard policy for Chinese bound flights.

The last time I was on SIN-ORD-HKG (last few 744 flights before they all switched to SFO), it worked from SIN till half way to HKG. It didn't work until we were close to Alaska (I checked about every 30 minutes) ... then it cut out again after working for 15 minutes... and then it cut in and out in Canada until we were in the US where it worked until arrival.

It was terrible ... and not worth the money. I've complained about it but they just said it was a new system that needs to be worked out and thanked for my detailed observations (I documented the times and approx location from the map). Doesn't sound like it went anywhere.

There appears to be a slight disconnect between UA marketing and UA reality.

Wi-Fi on 863/839
 

Has anyone used the wifi on the Sydney flights? A large chunk of the southern pacific is greyed out as a non-coverage area, so I was curious if anyone had experience with whether it worked and how much it costs.

Also...1K® posts!

have you reviewed http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-wifi-ife.html
or http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...l#post21170939

Route specific?
 

As for implementation of wifi for the 744, is it done by route or is it just completely random? I have a SFO-FRA trip coming up and was wondering if my chances were better than lets say, HNL-NRT.

Hi JamesHNL,

The 747s with WiFi are not dedicated to particular routes, however if you look up the Flight Status for a particular flight on the United Mobile App and elsewhere, the 'Amenities' section will indicate whether the aircraft is equipped with Wi-Fi technology. Slightly more than half of our 747 fleet has Wi-Fi.

Aaron Goldberg
Sr. Manager - Customer Experience Planning
United Airlines

Really? Where does it indicate WiFi? Under Entertainment section? Specifically, does aircraft #8497 have working WiFi? That is my scheduled aircraft on a flight SFO-SYD coming up.

#8497 does not currently have WIFI installed.

I did UA902 last week and the wifi was completely useless.
Heard that there were many people that had actually managed to hook up and pay, but in the end was a waste of time.
Sit back, relax and watch the movies instead is my best advice. :)

Why doesn't the system work over China?

The Chinese government doesn't allow it. I think there are one or two other countries that don't allow it either.

Because...they have the spectrum assigned to other uses? Because they have their own company using the same spectrum in that area? I'm curious.

More like because they can't put their "great firewall of china" filtering/monitoring on there.