What am I flying over on a US flight?
A US transcontinental flight spends hours over country with almost nothing under it: the Great Basin, the high plains, stretches of Nevada and Wyoming with no cell coverage. As seatback screens disappear from narrowbodies, SkyDot is often the only moving map on the aircraft.
Hours with nothing underneath
New York to Los Angeles is close to six hours, and the memorable stretch is the two hours over the Rockies and the Great Basin. It is also exactly where a connected tracker struggles, because there is no ground network beneath you to reach.
GPS does not care. Your position comes from satellites overhead, so the map keeps moving over the emptiest terrain in the country as reliably as it does over Chicago.
- JFK to LAX
- 6 hours
- Position source
- Satellites, not towers
The seatback screen is going away
American, United and Alaska have been removing seatback screens from narrowbody aircraft, and Southwest never fitted them across its 737 fleet. On those aircraft the moving map went with the screen. You can stream entertainment to your own device, but the flight map is not part of it.
Wifi is usually available and usually paid. If all you want is to know where you are and what is below, you do not need to buy it.
Questions
Do US domestic flights still have moving maps?
Increasingly not. American, United and Alaska have removed seatback screens from many narrowbodies and Southwest never had them. Streaming to your own device is the replacement, and it rarely includes the flight map.
Does it work over remote areas with no cell service?
Yes, and that is where the difference shows. GPS is satellite positioning, so coverage over Nevada or Wyoming is the same as over a city. The map itself is already on your phone.
Do I need to buy inflight wifi to use it?
No. Download the North America map pack on the ground and the whole flight runs offline. Buying wifi changes nothing about how it works.