Getting on an airplane no longer means losing touch with the outside world. These days, the friendly skies are more connected than ever before.
According to a new report from airline comparison service Routehappy, 2014 was a "banner year" for connectivity in the skies. Just a few years ago, in-flight Wi-Fi was a rarity, and where it was available, flyers complained about slow speeds and high prices.
"The landscape has since changed dramatically," Routehappy said. These days, in-flight Wi-Fi is widely available on mainline and regional connection flights within the U.S., and it's becoming more common on international flights as well.
Wi-Fi performance varies by airline. In the U.S., 35 percent of connected planes had "good" Wi-Fi that would be equivalent to 3G speeds, 38 percent had "better" service that rivals 4G, while just 1 percent had the "best" quality, which would be adequate for streaming video.
Overall, 52 airlines around the world now offer in-flight Wi-Fi in most regions; in the U.S., Delta and Virgin America earn top honors (though not everyone is impressed).
Delta — the largest U.S. airline — offers "by far" the most flights and flight miles with Wi-Fi due to its sheer number of flights per day, Routehappy said. But Virgin America — a much smaller airline — earned bragging rights for offering Wi-Fi on nearly 100 percent of its flights. If you're traveling across the pond, however, you might be best off with United, which has the most international planes with Wi-Fi, and offers the "best" service.
For more, check out the infographic below.
But is your information safe in the sky? Earlier this month, Google engineer Adrienne Porter Felt released a report that said Gogo Inflight Internet was serving SSL certificates from Gogo instead of site providers—a big no-no in online security. The move could mean that passwords and other sensitive information entered while logged into the Gogo service could have been compromised. See more in the video below.
