NYC City Council: “We Want Free Wi-Fi in Airports!”

Yahoo Travel
Updated

New York City has everything. You can order sushi at 3am, take a water taxi to IKEA and the people watching is unmatched by any other city. The one thing it doesn’t have is free Wi-Fi in its airports.

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Free Wi-Fi makes a long layover bearable. (Picture: Thinkstock)

When airports started providing free internet access, it felt like finding cash money on the street. Finally, those long layovers would be eased by the fact that you could stream episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” on Netflix without paying $9.99 a day for using the interwebs. Sure, it wasn’t every airport, but it was only a matter of time right?

Wrong. While many major airports have adapted a free Wi-Fi policy, New York has remained stubborn — but a break might happen soon.

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Wi-FI provider, Boingo, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are currently renegotiating their contract to include free service at Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. However, there is no timeline for when those talks will be resolved.

The City Council of New York City and the Global Gateway Alliance want action sooner than later, and even sent an impassioned letter to the Boingo CEO expressing their frustrations. “Simply put, we are no longer in an era where having Wi-Fi should be considered a luxury,” said the City Council. “The lack of sponsored connectivity is becoming a greater nuisance each day.”

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Yet for now, Wi-Fi at NYC airports will still cost you. But we’ll leave you with a list of other major airports that gladly provide free internet to their passengers. C’mon, New York… jump on the bandwagon!

Major Airports with Free Wi-Fi*

Domestic Airports:

San Francisco (SFO)

Phoenix (PHX)

Seattle (SEA)

Minneapolis (MSP)

Philadelphia (PHL)

Atlanta (ATL)

Detroit (DTW)

Boston (BOS)

Los Angeles (LAX)

Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)

Denver (DEN)

Charlotte (CLT)

Las Vegas (LAS)

Houston (IAH)

Orlando (MCO)

Fort Lauderdale (FLL)

International Airports:

Beijing Capital (PEK)

Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG)

Zurich (ZRH)

Singapore Changi (SIN)

Frankfurt (FRA)

London Heathrow (LHR)

Hong Kong (HKG)

Dubai (DXB)

Amsterdam Schipol (AMS)

Incheon (ICN)

Munich (MUC)

Tokyo Haneda (HND)

Grantley Adams Airport, Barbados (BGI)

Kuala Lampur International Airport (KUL)

*Or at least limited access to free Wi-Fi

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