Wifi-less 737-300s on long haul flights = *disapointment*

[willenium]

Greetings SWA!   FTR, I am a SWA evangelist with > 800K lifetime miles and love your brand! However, my few past dozen flights I have experienced either *no* on-board wifi OR *very poor* on-board wifi performance!  Sincerely this week of travel has been a major disappointment!  First, the older 737-300 planes have stinky bathrooms and usually have no *wifi* and I am very surprised they would be used for greater than 45 minute flights!    I understand there is a plan to phase out these dinosaurs (737-300) and make way for the new 737-MAX series in the near future, but for God’s sake please prioritize the older birds for smaller hops!   FTR, between Monday and Thursday I have lost ~ 7 hours of valuable business email time and am quite surprised 737-300s would be used on a 4 hour flight!   

*5/8 = AUS to BOS = 4 hours  = 737-300 *no wifi*

*5/11 = BOS to ATL = 2.5 hours = 737-300 *no wifi*

*5/11 = ATL to GSP = 32 minutes = 737-300 *no wifi*

Also note, when I do have to board an American flight the GoGo wifi experience is top notch and their fleet is equipped with wifi 90% of the time!

Please note this feedback is to improve the customer experience @ SWA and not meant as a customer ranting!

Cheer & have a blessed day! 😊

Will Smith

[chgoflyer]

The 300s are scheduled to be retired by the end of the year. There are a few incoming used 700s that won't have wifi until they are sent out for installation, but once the 300s are gone your chances of having a wifi-enabled plane are very good. That's the good news.

The bad news is that, overall, Southwest's satellite-based internet connectivity is pretty abysmal. The wifi system functions great as an in-cabin entertainment system (choosing from the available menu) but trying to do a 2-way connection to the internet is frustrating. Sometimes good for email, but generally not much else.

[msturtz]

Oh, I don't know, I've certainly had good days and bad days with it.  I've managed to work in terminal sessions over VPN sometimes, and others you can't even get Gmail to load.  Probably depends largely on the day and time, and maybe also what part of the country you're in -- the bird has "spot beams", like a cell tower has a bunch of antennas, that cover different parts of the country.  I bet the northeast is worse than the middle flyover states, and 8am will be worse than 10pm.

[chgoflyer]

Correct -- it's absolutely dependent on routes and time of day (number of people accessing the same bandwidth). But since reliability is so poor, it's essentially useless to me. The couple of times I've really needed it -- even for something as simple as replying to client emails as some crisis is developing-- it's failed.

If you can't count on it when you need it, what's the point?

[DMZDave]

I think SWA has largely undervalued WiFi as a requirement for many travelers and in particular their A List customers.  I'm on my second flight this week without WiFi on s flight lasting over 2 hours.  It's just irritating.  I fly 100 flights a year but I'm not paying so I could have flown a more reliable WiFi equipped carrier but fly SWA out of loyalty.  How about some loyalty in my direction? 

[chgoflyer]

The 300s are scheduled to be retired by the end of the year. There are a few incoming used 700s that won't have wifi until they are sent out for installation, but once the 300s are gone your chances of having a wifi-enabled plane are very good. That's the good news. The bad news is that Southwest's wifi remains abysmal.