My Honest Experience Using United Airlines Wifi?

Yes, in short - it’s shite.

Somewhere over Scotland on the way to the US, on a 9-hour United flight, I made what should have been a simple decision:

“I’ll buy the Wifi”. It should have been simple task.

But it did’t work like it should. It should be as simple as making a cup of tea or turning on a tv - but it’s not.

It also does that thing with the lead in prices. So what I thought was $7.99 for the flight, became $7.99 for just one hour, and the price for the duration of the flight was $14.99.

Now for 9 hours, that isn’t bad - except that I’ve been pissing around for an hour now trying to get the internet to work on the laptop. Seems that the phone works though - so I’m hoping to tether to the phone connectivity.

As an aside the cabin crew are giving off in a SPRITed fashion about vegetarians - which feels a little harsh, especially as at least the last 4 rows can hear their ranting. They aren’t service oriented individuals.

I’m connected to wifi now on my phone - albeit to the slowest of slow internet connections, but my personal hot spot is disabled. Bugger.

Online help suggested I could “switch devices”.

At this point I had the confidence level of a man trying to repair a nuclear reactor using google.

Still…

I gave it a go.

Expelliarmus.

I shit you not.

It worked.

it’s witchcraft a la Harry Potter and his mates.

United you are all forgiven.

More so on our next flight from DEN to PVR we had Starlink. Easy to connect, FREE, and fast.

If United’s older wifi system is your only option, lower your expectations and bring patience.

But if your aircraft has Starlink? Completely different experience. Fast, free, simple — exactly how airline wifi should work in 2026.

And yes… I still have absolutely no idea how they attached a satellite dish to the plane.