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Why is southwest Wifi so bad?

vebba
Explorer C

In the last year I’ve flown internationally on multiple carriers. In the last 3 months I’ve flown Westjet, American, and Delta, and currently, southwest.

I am not exaggerating…8 out of my last 10 southwest flights I’ve had no WiFi. These are different hubs, different size planes and crews.

WiFi has worked continually both domestically (US) and internationally on almost every flight I’ve taken from literally any other airline. I truly do not understand it. Maybe there’s a technical explanation, I’d love to learn why.

It tracks with Southwest performance in falling behind in growth metrics to cheaper options like frontier and allegiant. And at this point it’s almost as expensive as American, United, and Delta. What is going on in WiFi land

3 REPLIES 3

Re: Why is southwest Wifi so bad?

SoCalFlyer97
Aviator C

@vebba wrote:

In the last year I’ve flown internationally on multiple carriers. In the last 3 months I’ve flown Westjet, American, and Delta, and currently, southwest.

I am not exaggerating…8 out of my last 10 southwest flights I’ve had no WiFi. These are different hubs, different size planes and crews.

WiFi has worked continually both domestically (US) and internationally on almost every flight I’ve taken from literally any other airline. I truly do not understand it. Maybe there’s a technical explanation, I’d love to learn why.

It tracks with Southwest performance in falling behind in growth metrics to cheaper options like frontier and allegiant. And at this point it’s almost as expensive as American, United, and Delta. What is going on in WiFi land


Hello-

 

Sorry to hear you're having trouble with the Wi-Fi. Signal drops unfortunately is a known reported issue, especially aboard the older 737-700 fleets but outages have occurred on the other SW planes as you stated. I've also personally had better luck with the signal aboard Southwest's newer fleets.

 

I would send your inquiry directly to SW Customer service as this forum is customer-to-customer and community posts will most likely not reach SW's IT Department. If you purchased full Wi-Fi service for any of your flights but experienced a poor connection during your flight, I would contact Southwest directly to request a refund. Email here:

https://support.southwest.com/helpcenter/s/email-us

 

You can also send a DM via Twitter/X. Hope this helps.

Re: Why is southwest Wifi so bad?

floridaguy
Aviator C

If the wifi doesn't work then request a refund of part of your ticket - it is supposed to be "included" in the cost.

 

If you paid for the wifi, request a full refund.

Re: Why is southwest Wifi so bad?

gsking
Aviator C

Yeah, it indeed seems to be getting worse.  And they no longer seem to tolerate the vpn I’m required to use for work.

 

 Kind of a bummer.