I am currently writing this post on my flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles (though it’s being published a day later) aboard an American Airlines (formerly US Airways) Airbus A321. I’ve taken this trip twice per week for the past 10 weeks and there has been WiFi on every single one of those flights.

I overheard a couple of passengers behind me talking about how this particular flight didn’t have WiFi service so I was curious and tweeted American to find out. I could’ve just asked a flight attendant, but I wanted to know if HQ knew.

Within a few minutes, American replied back that my flight did not have Gogo in-flight WiFi. As you can imagine, this gave me such a sinking feeling knowing I’d be embarking on a 5hr 15 minute flight without internet (first world problems, I know).

I immediately “reaction published” a tweet chastising American for the lack of WiFi on this flight, to which they apologized.

Once we were airborne I flicked on my laptop’s wifi just for amusement and ALAS! “Gogo in-flight” appeared.

Could it be!?

Within five minutes I was connected to the internet and surfing the web.

Now I feel like an idiot who overreacted.

MY POINT

How the heck does the actual airline not know if a particular flight has WiFi? They repeatedly told me to check for the WiFi icon next to my boarding pass. I did and there was none, but the flight has WiFi.

The lesson to AA should be that your right hand should know what the left is doing if you want to avoid semi-irrational freakouts from loyalists like me. If my Twitter following was actually more than 1,000, there could’ve been some unnecessary reputation damage.

Don’t make me hate you American! Jeez!

Okay, now I’ll go back to shutting up and enjoying the WiFi available on this flight 🙂