News & Advice

JetBlue Now Has Free, High-Speed Wi-Fi at Every Seat

Also: no need to wait for cruising altitude to connect.
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Most of us looking to connect to Wi-Fi inflight know the drill: We wait patiently through safety videos, taxi, takeoff, and the ascent to 10,000 feet before getting out our laptops, tablets, and devices, plugging in our payment info, and connecting—somewhat spottily—to an airline's Wi-Fi network. Now, thanks to JetBlue, this is changing—at least within the contiguous U.S.

In a press release on January 11, the airline announced that it had completely eliminated the need for customers to wait until cruising altitude to connect on their flights—instead, fliers can now can swipe, tap, surf, tweet, shop, Instagram, email, and more from the moment they step on board until they reach the arrival gate in their respective destination. Even better? Every seat on every one of the airline's planes has free Wi-Fi connectivity through the carrier's Fly-Fi network—and some of the fastest in the sky, we should note.

Fly-Fi Internet connectivity is currently available only over the contiguous U.S., however (sorry, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. territories). JetBlue notes that for flights originating outside of the contiguous U.S., Fly-Fi connectivity will only be available once the aircraft returns to the coverage area. Regardless of when—or what—you're watching, a little etiquette goes a long way: this free-Wi-Fi-for-all model doesn't give you license to watch YouTube videos on full volume, sans headphones.

JetBlue's free Fly-Fi is nothing new. The service was originally introduced in December 2013 on a single aircraft and has slowly been expanded over the years, with installation on its entire fleet of 227 Airbus A320s, A321s, and Embraer 190s only recently completed. As part of JetBlue's partnership with Amazon, users can also stream movies and TV via Amazon Video, and earn three TrueBlue points per $1 spent shopping on Amazon.com. Hours to shop online, and rewards for doing so—what could go wrong?