BWIflyerman

Morning flight SFO-HNL on 777-300 the WiFi was working except for a couple of minutes mid flight. $18.99 for full flight.

HNLbasedFlyer

I can't remember the last time WiFi not available HNL-SFO (although I don't use it all the time), but I find it painfully slow.

LarryJ

For Internet access, only the Panasonic-equipped airplanes will have service on the crossing to/from Hawaii. This includes Airbus 319, Airbus 320, select Boeing 757-200, select 757-300, 767-300ER, 767-400ER, 777-200, 777-200ER, 777-300ER, 787-8, 787-9 and 787-10 aircraft. (Of course, the A319/320 doesn't go to Hawaii)

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...ight/wifi.html

PsiFighter37

Not too surprising - given how integral being plugged in is these days, having free Wi-Fi makes sense. It'll probably come through as a subtle upcharge on fares, but not enough for people to notice. It will be nice not to get charged $40, though

It will be nice when TG makes the move and no longer charges silly amounts of money and gives out free 10MB cards

drewguy

Yeah, that seems almost inevitable if there's a free tier. Free gets you limited functionality - messages, email, slow internet. Pay more if you want faster speed. Seems totally reasonable to me - I don't really want a lot of internet on planes, and would be happy just to get some texts and email. Understand others want more, and think it's reasonable to have them pay for that.

Weatherboy

I've noticed on more and more of my flights lately that WiFi is free.

I'm also paying for a WiFi subscription. Is there any ryhme or reason to when it's free? I'm wondering if I should keep the subscription if more and more WiFi becomes available for free.

WineCountryUA

Which flights have that been?

exerda

That would be my question, too. The prices on mine have been going up, up, up (to the point I complained about it in my post-flight survey for a recent one, where they wanted $20 for an hour or $40 for 5 hours).

fumje

How do you mean free? Any chance your credentials are being remembered somehow?

I have never seen fully free wifi. Sometimes certain google services or imessage work without purchase, but not general web traffic.

LarryJ

I think what you're seeing is the services that will work through the wifi without purchasing internet. Internet service is not (yet) free on any flights. There isn't even a way for us to 'comp' the internet as we used to do with the DirecTV (before it became free) on the airplanes that are so equipped.

There are four (I think) different WiFi/Internet systems currently on UAL and UX aircraft. What will work without purchase varies depending on the system. iMessage and some limited Google services are the ones that might work, depending on the system. The United App, United website, and some partner websites should work on all of them.

From piecing together bits from several communications, I think the plan is to make the Internet free after they get the system(s) working reliably and with sufficient bandwidth. They are working on the three active systems, the fourth is on the currently grounded MAX aircraft, with the goal to find out which works best. So far, the system on the MAX was performing the best but it doesn't have the worldwide coverage for the long haul aircraft though its coverage is better than the system on the 737 NGs. We use the aircraft's WiFi up front to access our WSi weather app (our official weather provider) in the cockpit now so we always know if the internet is working. I've noticed a significant improvement over the past few months, thought still far from perfect, so it looks like they're making some progress.

SteveHK

(Not at all making a statement on behalf of United, this is only me speaking personally)

As a UA corporate employee, the email this FA referenced is a total mystery to me and would definitely be something I'd be on the distro list way before any front line employee.

That being said, I know that wifi is regularly discussed in executive meetings and there is a lot of work in progress, but this FA was definitely incorrect in saying that there was an email letting employees know a deployment date.

Weatherboy

I had another flight with free WiFi: a 777 HNL-SFO.

When on unitedwifi.com when you go to the WiFi page where you'd typically enter your credentials, it just has a box that says Free WiFi.

No where were credentials requested or prices mentioned. On my next flight out of SFO, credentials were required on the same page and it was not free.

My last flight with free wifi was LAS-SFO.

WineCountryUA

May be a random system test for demand and impact if free wifi was offered. There is no systematic free wifi on UA at this point.