Gone are the days of having to download hours and hours of movies and tv shows on to your phone or tablet ahead of a long flight so you don’t die of boredom at 30,000 feet, airlines have done a lot to improve their in-flight options. It started really with JetBlue giving every seat Direct TV, this article does an excellent job laying out some of the options (often free) we have on the major airlines. It doesn’t mention United, when I flew them up to Montreal this summer I downloaded their app to my phone, once on board as long as the service is available on that flight, you connect to their wi-fi for free and use it to access their streaming movies and TV shows.