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Southwest Airlines is making a change to how it charges customers for inflight Wi-Fi, and the new policy will go into effect next week, as first reported by View From the Wing.
Here’s what you need to know about the change, which will increase the cost of connectivity for many flyers.
Starting Tuesday, February 21, 2023, Southwest will begin charging per flight for inflight Wi-Fi. This is a change from its current method of charging per day.
As it stands now, Wi-Fi costs passengers $8 for an entire day, regardless of how many Southwest flights they take during that day. As of next Tuesday, it will cost $8 per flight.
This means that if you have a 1-stop itinerary with Southwest and want to have Wi-Fi for your entire journey, your Wi-Fi cost will double. However, with Southwest offering primarily point-to-point service across its network, it may not mean that everybody will see a price increase for connectivity.
The move comes at an interesting time for a number of reasons. First, Southwest is dealing with a public relations crisis with the fallout of its operational meltdown over the holiday season. It doesn’t seem like the ideal time to begin charging customers more for inflight perks, which could come off as a nickel-and-diming move. To be fair, though, Southwest doesn’t charge for things like baggage, flight changes and cancellations, and seat assignments, a big differentiator from much of the competition.
Second, this comes at a time just after Delta Air Lines made inflight Wi-Fi free on many of its aircraft, not to mention the fact that JetBlue has offered free Wi-Fi to flyers for years.
On the other hand, the airline is in the middle of a project that will upgrade its inflight Wi-Fi, potentially increasing speeds and bandwidth up to 10 times current capabilities. And, Southwest will hardly be an outlier in the industry, considering that Alaska Airlines also charges $8 per flight, and American Airlines still uses a dynamic model to price its inflight Wi-Fi offering.
Hot Tip: Learn all there is to know about Southwest Rapid Rewards in our full review of its loyalty program.
As of next Tuesday, February 21, Southwest Airlines will begin charging $8 per flight for inflight Wi-Fi, as opposed to the current $8 per day.
Whether this change will cost you more money depends on how you use Southwest’s network. If you’re mainly flying point-to-point on nonstop flights, you won’t notice a difference. However, if you frequently book connecting itineraries with the carrier, the cost of Wi-Fi for you will double (or more) as a result of this change.
