Business travel nowadays needs Wi-Fi. And if you want Wi-Fi, fly a U.S. airline.
Airline amenity analysis engine Routehappy looked at the current state of Internet access on airlines around the world, and found a dramatic gap in availability between U.S. and non-U.S. planes. U.S. airlines offer Wi-Fi on 78 percent of their available seat miles, while non-U.S. airlines offer it on only 24 percent.
The main reason is that all four of our largest airlines—United, American, Delta and Southwest—have Wi-Fi on board most of their planes, and JetBlue and Virgin America do, too.
Outside the U.S., Wi-Fi rollouts typically only appear on long-haul aircraft, Routehappy says. While there are 53 non-U.S. airlines that offer in-flight Wi-Fi, 76 percent of service-miles aren't covered, the company says.
Singapore-based Scoot, Icelandair, Etihad, Emirates, and Norwegian give you the best chance of connecting on all their flights. On long-haul flights, Lufthansa, Aeroflot, Garuda, Aer Lingus, Etihad, Emirates, Oman, and Iberia are doing well, the company reported.
The Need for Speed
Having Wi-Fi doesn't mean the Wi-Fi will be usable, though. The Gogo system currently installed on most Delta and American planes has a maximum, planewide bandwidth of 9.8Mbps. On busy flights like my flight back from CES, that just isn't enough; I paid for Gogo and then it was too slow to use.
As I reported in November, Gogo's new 2Ku system bumps that up to 70Mbps per plane. That's coming to Delta, American, Aeromexico, Virgin Atlantic, and others.
JetBlue and Virgin America, meanwhile, are a step ahead, already in the midst of installing Viasat's "Exede in the Air" system, which claims to offer up to 12Mbps per seat and adequate performance with 50-70 devices connected at one time.
For more on Gogo's new 2Ku system, watch the video below.