Fast, free Wi-Fi coming to Delta’s international jets with latest upgrade

Staying connected to fast internet while traveling the world will soon be a reality with Delta Air Lines. The Atlanta-based airline announced Tuesday that it is officially working with Viasat, one of the leading providers of satellite connectivity, to equip the airline’s entire widebody fleet with the provider’s latest connectivity solutions.

As part of the expanded collaboration, Delta will add Viasat antennas to its Airbus A330, Airbus A350 and Boeing 767 fleets. Tuesday’s announcement also includes the Airbus A220 jets and future deliveries of the Boeing 737 MAX, of which Delta has ordered up to 130. (You can find a full fleet-by-fleet update at the bottom of this story.)

These existing jets in Delta’s fleet are currently connected to the “Wi-Fi Onboard” service, formerly known as Gogo. While the speed and reliability of this satellite-based service are generally quite good, they’re probably not powerful enough to support an entire planeload of passengers connecting to the internet with multiple devices.

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Delta’s partnership with Viasat dates back to January 2021, when the airline began laying the groundwork for free fleet-wide Wi-Fi. Since then, the airline has installed the Viasat antennas on more than 540 domestic aircraft and plans to complete the entire domestic fleet by the end of the year.

After months of testing, Delta finally activated its free Wi-Fi offer on all eligible domestic flights in early February. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the new internet service on my recent travels, even on busy flights with hundreds of connected devices.

Delta will roll out its fast, free Wi-Fi offering on all international jets by the end of 2024. In the meantime, as the airline begins transitioning to Viasat on its long-haul flights, you’ll still need to buy Wi-Fi, but the speed and reliability should be a lot better than Delta’s existing offerings.

Once a critical mass of jets have switched to Viasat, Delta will flip the switch to the free offering.

In addition to offering faster and more reliable speeds, the new Viasat connection will also be available from pushback to parking, while the existing service is only available once the jet has traversed 10,000 feet.

This expansion fits perfectly with the upcoming launch of the ViaSat-3 satellite constellation (scheduled for April), which will enable global connectivity excluding polar routes. These upgraded satellites are also poised to offer an even faster and more reliable connection during peak traffic times.

To connect to free Wi-Fi, you must be a SkyMiles member and sign in with your credentials on each of your devices. No further conditions are necessary.

With this latest news, Delta’s regional jets are the only planes that don’t offer fast and free WiFi. These small planes are still connected to Gogo’s air-to-ground service, which is among the slowest and most unreliable services out there. It only works above 10,000 feet, and loading content-rich webpages is excruciatingly slow if it works at all.

While Delta has yet to announce any plans to improve the connectivity of its regional jets, the airline can turn to semi-private airline JSX for inspiration.

JSX flies Embraer 135 and 145 regional jets, and the airline is in the process of installing SpaceX’s Starlink internet service on those planes. I recently had the opportunity to test the Starlink service on a demo flight and was blown away by the blazing fast speeds and impressive reliability.

In fact, Starlink has proven to be the fastest onboard Wi-Fi I’ve seen, and I really hope Delta considers using it on its fleet of regional jets.

Fleet availability of Delta’s free Wi-Fi