100 new American Airlines aircraft to be equipped with high-speed Internet

The 100 Airbus A321neo aircraft that American Airlines ordered years ago will be equipped with high-speed Internet capabilities. The provider of the high-speed system, Viasat, announced it had scored the deal in its latest quarterly earnings report. The move for American Airlines is the latest step in improving its on-board Wi-Fi. American has fewer aircraft equipped with air-to-satellite capability compared with air-to-ground, but the disparity is shrinking. In all, about 200 of the airline's domestic narrow-body aircraft either have Viasat or Gogo 2Ku systems on them, an American spokesperson said. The split between the two system providers is about 100 each. Viasat said it activated 122 aircraft with its system last quarter, and a majority of those were retrofits for American aircraft. <br/>