U.S. airlines are leading the world for in-flight WiFi availability.
Routehappy, a company that provides a product differentiation platform for air travel by helping you find the best airlines for your route, released it’s annual Global State of WiFi report. U.S. based carriers lead the way for in-flight WiFi availability with 71% offering WiFi. This data sounds even more impressing when you learn 76% of non U.S. based airlines do not have WiFi. Virgin America leads U.S. Carriers with nearly 100% of it’s fleet equipped with in-flight Wi-Fi. Delta and Southwest come in second and third, with over 80% of each carrier’s fleets equipped with in-flight WiFi. Other U.S. based airlines with in-flight WiFi available on some planes include United, American, Southwest, JetBlue, Virgin America, and Alaska Airlines.
Another exciting addition to in-flight WiFi over the past year was JetBlue launching free in-flight broadband this year called Fly-Fi. Fly-Fi is 100% complete on JetBlue A320’s and A321’s. JetBlue’s E190’s have only 7% completion.
When looking at the number of seats for sale multiplied by the number of flights flown, also called available seats per mile (ASMs), Delta offers the most ASMs with at least some chance of Wi-Fi. However, United offers the most long haul ASMs (>2800 miles) with at some chance of Wi-Fi compared to Delta and American. United also has the best connectivity out of the three.In 2015, American expanded coverage by adding nearly 350 Wi-Fi enabled US Airways aircraft to its fleet.
From a global perspective, 60 airlines worldwide have in-flight WiFi available. Passengers have a chance of in-flight WiFi on 36% of available seat miles (ASMs) worldwide offer in-flight WiFi. Of the ten busiest global routes, the most connected route is New York to Dubai, while the least connected is London to Hong Kong. It is also worth nothing Lufthansa is the only carrier offing in-flight WiFi on 100% of long haul flights.
See the full infographic from Routehappy below.
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