April 7, 2009
American Airlines Offers In-Flight Wifi
Megan Smith READ TIME: 2 MIN.
American Airlines is taking its high-altitude experiment with Wi-Fi out of the trial stage and has decided to install Gogo? Inflight Internet on more than 300 domestic aircraft over the next two years.
American, a founding member of the oneworld? Alliance, was the first U.S. airline to launch the Gogo service last August. Since then, thousands of customers traveling on 15 of American's Boeing 767-200 aircraft have enjoyed Inflight Internet service primarily on nonstop flights between New York JFK and San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami.
American will install the Aircell system on its domestic MD-80 and Boeing 737-800 aircraft fleets, beginning with 150 MD-80 aircraft this year.
"We are excited to be able to offer the Gogo high-speed service to customers on other aircraft within the American Airlines domestic fleet, starting with the MD-80s," said Dan Garton, American's Executive Vice President-Marketing. "Our trial over the past six months offered customers the choice to remain connected to work, home or elsewhere when flying on American Airlines. And it also gave us the ability to study customers' willingness to take advantage of high-speed, onboard connectivity and to gauge how the service performed technically in a variety of settings over an extended period of time. We are pleased that the results were positive and that we have decided to move forward."
Gogo turns an American Airlines flight into a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling passengers to surf the Web, check e-mail, send instant messages, access a corporate VPN and more. Once the aircraft has reached 10,000 feet, users can simply turn on their Wi-Fi enabled devices - such as laptops, smartphones and handheld PDAs - then open their browsers and be directed to the Gogo portal page where they sign up and begin surfing. Gogo is powered by the Aircell air-to-ground (ATG) system, which uses three small antennas installed outside the aircraft and connects to Aircell's exclusive nationwide mobile broadband network.
Aircell's price for the Gogo service ranges from $7.95 to $12.95 based on length of flight and whether the device is a handheld PDA or a laptop computer. Aircell's pricing plans are:
"The passenger response to Gogo Inflight Internet has exceeded even our own high expectations, with many people becoming frequent users who rely on it to stay connected to the office, friends and family in their travels," said Jack Blumenstein, President and CEO, Aircell. "We are excited to help American Airlines expand Gogo to the majority of its domestic fleet, enabling more of its passengers to turn flying time into 'me time.' With Gogo, flying becomes whatever you want it to be - productive, entertaining, informative, you name it."
Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet, e-mail and VPN access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service use will not be available.
Megan is the Assistant Travel Editor for EDGE Publications. Based in Australia, she has been published in gay and lesbian publications in both America and Australia, and she has been on assignment as a travel-writer for Let's Go travel guides in Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.
