Here’s what major U.S. airlines offer for WiFi access and what’s coming up, reports CNN:
- Alaska Airlines offers in-flight Wi-Fi through Row 44. The airline said it launched a trial in mid-February on flights along the West Coast to determine usage and demand, and announced in April it would begin to determine pricing.
- American Airlines announced in late March it would install Aircell’s Gogo on more than 300 domestic aircraft over the next two years.
- Delta Air Lines is using Gogo, and will have Wi-Fi capabilities aboard more than 330 aircraft by the end of this year, the airline announced in August 2008.
- Frontier Airlines uses LiveTV for its in-flight entertainment. The airline is testing a LiveTV product that would provide Wi-Fi, which they hope to launch by the end of the year, said Frontier spokesman Steve Snyder. Pricing has not yet been determined, he said.
- JetBlue provides limited, free Wi-Fi on its BetaBlue aircraft using LiveTV. Services include e-mail access through Yahoo! Mail, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Windows Live (Hotmail, MSN, Live) and AOL. Passengers can transmit Yahoo! instant messages and shop on Amazon.com’s mobile site, and those with BlackBerry smart phones can access their accounts. JetBlue is not ruling out the possibility of offering expanded services for a fee, said company spokeswoman Alison Croyle. The airline plans to roll out the LiveTV service on more of its fleet this year, she said.
- Southwest Airlines is testing Wi-Fi on four of its aircraft using Row 44 technology. After testing, which will probably last through April, the airline will determine pricing and how it will install the product on the rest of its fleet, spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said.
- United Airlines will use Gogo technology as it begins testing Wi-Fi on flights between New York and California in the second half of this year. The airline will decide on availability elsewhere after assessing feedback from testing, said United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski.
- Virgin America offers Wi-Fi using Gogo on all flights between Washington and Los Angeles, California, and all of its Boston routes. The airline said its entire fleet will have Internet access by the second quarter of this year. In addition to Gogo’s standard rates, Virgin America offers a rate of $5.95 for red-eye flights.
The number of broadband enabled airplanes will increase from 25 in 2008 to 800 in 2009, reports In-Stat.
Airtran, Continental and US Airways do not offer in-flight Wi-Fi, but representatives for those airlines said they are looking into it, reports CNN.Some 16 international air carriers have offered in-flight wireless telecommunications services, spanning three continents with vastly diverse cultures in 36 nations, serving close to 200 city destinations.
But Congress recently introduced a bill that would ban passengers from using wireless devices on commercial flights and includes a provision that would prohibit airline passengers from using wireless telecommunications devices. The primary purpose of the bill is to reauthorize the FAA and modernize the nation’s air traffic control system and implement a much-needed Airline Passenger Bill of Rights.
The FAA intends to install hundreds of refrigerator-sized ground receivers that are meant to replace radar. The new system, dubbed NextGen, will be able to broadcast their GPS data to air traffic controllers and directly to one another.
