Delta Airlines offers free Wi-Fi

New York
CNN
–

Delta Air Lines is operational Free wifi for most of its aircraft starting February 1.

“It’s going to be free, it’s going to be fast and it’s going to be available to everyone,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He added that the airline has invested more than $1 billion in Wi-Fi technology over the past few years.

Passengers will need to be a member of its free program SkyMiles loyalty programme To access the Internet on the plane. Non-member customers will have to pay a flat fee of $10.

More than 500 of Delta’s domestic narrowbody jets serving the airline’s “most popular routes” will be ready for free Wi-Fi at launch, the company said. Regional international wide-body and small-body aircraft will be brought online by the end of 2024.

Customers will know if their flight has free Wi-Fi via a sticker near the boarding door. They can also connect multiple devices simultaneously.

The announcement, made Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show, takes several years off. Bastian said in 2018 Offering free Wi-Fi across its fleet was a priority, but it needed time to improve the technology so passengers didn’t have to contend with slow speeds.

Delta current fees Approximately $50 a month for Wi-Fi on its flights within North America and $70 on international flights. Free Wi-Fi has been tested and built over the past several years Messaging for free in 2017.

An airline’s in-flight internet has long been plagued by complaints of its inconsistent speeds. However, the efforts of A.J A host of satellite service providers and airlines Technology has evolved dramatically in the past decade – although it still has to catch up in comparison to home and office networking.

Delta is the first of the “big three” airlines to offer free Wi-Fi: United Airlines and American Airlines

(AAL) Both charge varying rates for access. Jet Blue

(JBLU) she has It offers free Wi-Fi since 2017.

The airline is betting that adding free W-Fi can make passengers more loyal to Delta and fuel growth for its loyalty program, which has about 100 million members. In October 2022, Delta entered into a partnership with Starbucks

(SBUX) And it began Award 1 mile for every dollar spent in the coffee series.

Bastian expected the partnership to add one million SkyMiles members within a year. However, Delta ended up adding 1 million new members within two weeks of its launch.