Air Canada Aeroplan members flying across North America, Mexico, and the Caribbean can now get online for free in flight. The carrier officially flipped the switch on its complimentary, streaming-quality connectivity program on 1 May 2025, making good on a commitment initially shared in June 2023 and reiterated in December 2024.
That timing may come as something of a surprise to passengers who flew with the carrier over the prior week. The service has been in free mode for several days as part of a soft launch, in advance of the formal activation this week.
The service is available on 88% of the carrier’s fleet. This includes mainline aircraft, Rouge, and the conversion of its regional jets from the legacy Gogo ATG offering to the new Intelsat multi-orbit solution. The carrier also remains committed to fitting its Q400 fleet operating at Toronto’s downtown Billy Bishop airport beginning later this year.
As part of the program rollout process Air Canada provided me with tickets (and flexibility to access configured aircraft) to try the service in flight earlier this week. This included a flight on a legacy E175 configuration, two segments on the CRJ900 with the new ESA on board, and an A220 with 2Ku. As always, my thoughts are presented without influence from the carrier.
The first flight of the trip was on the E175, where I expected the service to be poor. Turns out it was unusable. The capture portal never loaded, though the Air Canada app was able to access data, so the link to the ground was functional.
From there I boarded a CRJ-900 with the updated hardware on board. This was the plane I was keen to test, and the one that performed best throughout the trip. It was also where I ran in to a couple quirks around the free service offering.
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It is not enough to simply have an Aeroplan frequent flyer number to access the service. In order to get the free service passengers must have their Aeroplan frequent flyer number associated to the reservation. This is a step backwards from Air Canada’s original free messaging deployment that allowed access for some partner programs (MileagePlus, Miles+More, Skywards).
It also differs from how Delta Air Lines deploys its free for SkyMiles Members approach, which requires a login during the flight. On the plus side, remembering your last name and assigned seat is typically easier than credentials to the frequent flyer program. And it avoids some of the additional security Aeroplan has by default on account logins. It is, however, less great for the smaller subset of Air Canada travelers who credit their flights to a partner airline, or who book via a partner reward program.
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A second limitation: No second device. The free service only allows a single device to be online at a time.
Users with multiple devices can either transfer the service between them (just log in and it handles everything behind the scenes) or pay C$8 for the second device to remain online. This, again, differs from how other airlines in the Americas handle their free services, though is similar to most paid offerings.
Those two quirks aside, the service performed pretty darn well. I put it through the paces with streaming video and large file transfers, two functions that can also perform well over GEO. It handled those without any issues, delivering 19 Mbps sustained download speeds and just under 8 Mbps upload for a 1 gigabyte file. While Starlink’s LEO service produced lower latency and higher speed test numbers than the Air Canada/Intelsat service in my tests, the large file transfer speeds were very similar, suggesting those peak numbers do not impact the user experience as much as some might contend.
Video streaming took advantage of LEO’s lower latency for minimal buffering, nearly immediately catching up when I jumped around in the content.
I also tested more latency-sensitive applications, including VPN and remote desktop environments. Latency on the service was between 100-200ms for the bulk of the flight, significantly lower than the typical 700ms+ numbers on a GEO connection. This translated into a user experience much more like the “at home” environment airlines aim to replicate on board.
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Audio and video calling is prohibited on board, but the system performance (and perhaps personal experience at the behest of an AC executive) suggests that’s more of a policy thing than a practical limitation of the system. Indeed, Mark Nasr, Air Canada’s newly appointed EVP and Chief Operating Officer and, until yesterday, EVP Marketing & Digital, shared that he wants to see the carrier enable those services on board. He believes passengers (at least the Canadian ones) will self-regulate their behavior to not disturb others on board. He did not seemed concerned about the growing volume of sixth freedom traffic from US passengers affecting those expectations.
For the return flight things did not go quite as smoothly. The service worked on the ground prior to closing the boarding door. It dropped out, however, as we taxied for departure and did not return until about 20-30 minutes into the flight. When it came back we were connected to a GEO satellite rather than LEO services based on the latency experienced.
On the plus side the services still had plenty of bandwidth available. HD videos streamed fine, albeit with a smidgen more buffering to get started. Large file transfers showed comparable performance to the LEO network on the prior flight.
Services more sensitive to latency, like VPN or remote desktop, behaved as expected. It is not as good as on LEO, but can be functional, depending on the app. And, of course, still free.
I was later informed by Norman Haughton, Director, Inflight Digital Entertainment, WiFi, Media Sales and Analytics for Air Canada, that the situation I experienced with the service has only occurred a handful of other times since the ESA installations began. Haughton also highlighted the flexibility and value the multi-orbit solution brings to the table, with the ability to fail back to GEO when LEO fails for any reason. And, indeed, the system did failover to the backup link successfully, even if it did take a bit longer than I expected.
The following day I had a third flight, on an A220 with the 2Ku system active. It is a GEO-only solution and, much like GEO on the regional jet, comes with plenty of bandwidth but also the higher latency impact.
Unlike the regional jets the A220 also still has its embedded IFE system available, including Bluetooth pairing for headphones.
Overall the upgraded system hits the marks. It offers more bandwidth across the fleet, enough to support most usage scenarios. And for the users lucky enough to get the lower latency of the LEO network, the internet experience is even better.
I also noticed many fellow passengers logging in to the free service, even when not prompted for the freebie version by the crew. That’s a good sign for Air Canada as it sees desire for – and adoption of – the service grow.
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If Mark Nasr thinks passengers can be trusted to self-regulate over audio and video calls, he has clearly lost touch with reality. If they can’t do it with carry-on bags or service animals, why would they do it for calls?
I agree, and laughed a lot when he suggested it.