American Airlines Bringing In-Flight Wi-Fi to Over 300 Planes
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American Airlines to Filter Porn on In-Flight Wi-Fi
AA said it hasn't received any complaints from passengers or flight attendants regarding people viewing inappropriate content on its trial jets, but said that filtering content was an appropriate measure to take to prevent putting its employees and customers in an uncomfortable situation.
We're all for it. The only thing worse than being stuck next to a sweaty guy too big to fit into his seat is sitting next to a guy too big to fit into his seat who is sweaty because of the contents of his browser. [From: USA Today]
American Airlines Launches In-Flight Wi-Fi Service
At long last, "you are now free to surf the intarwebz while flying." Okay, so maybe it has been possible in the past, but American Airlines is taking a huge leap forward in the US market today by giving passengers aboard long-haul Boeing 767-200 flights the option to hop online during the trip. The GoGo service, which is being provided by Aircell, will charge customers $12.95 for access to the world wide web, though Reuters points out that VoIP calling is "not available." Delta, US Airways, et al. -- time to get with the program. [From: Reuters via Dallas News, thanks Travis]American Airlines and JetBlue to Offer In-Flight Wi-Fi
It appears as if this whole Wi-Fi on airlines thing is finally taking off (sorry, couldn't help it). Four months after announcing that it intends to put Wi-Fi on some of its planes, American Airlines is starting to reval some specifics on the plan. Wi-Fi access to a broadband data connection will be provided by Aircell (which has also partnered with Virgin) on transcontinental 767-200 flights starting in 2008. The best part is the price, which we were worried about back in August when we heard the first rumblings of this program. How much, you ask? Well, it's going to cost $0. Thats right, it's free.
Not to be out done, JetBlue yesterday announced that it, too, would be offering free Wi-Fi on some of its planes -- as long as you're using it to access your Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, or BlackBerry Mail. This amounts to nothing more than a tease. The airline might as well not offer anything at all.
So far, efforts to bring the Internet to the air have failed. And pretty miserably, we might add. Connexion and Lufthansa (among other international airlines) teamed up a few years ago, but the service was shut down last December since no one seemed willing to pay for it.
Will these new efforts succeed where past ones have failed? In the case of American Airlines, we'd say there is a strong possibility, since it's offering access to any site, just like on the ground! And it makes a lot of sense to focus only on long-haul flights, since a long 14-hour flight to Tokyo is exactly when you need to be getting online.
Let's just hope people don't start using Skype or other Internet phone services and yap away the hours.
From CrunchGear
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Cell Phones, Computers, BlackBerry, E-Mail Addiction
American, Lufthansa Adding In-Flight Wi-Fi
Meanwhile, Lufthansa is working with T-Mobile to bring back Wi-Fi to its planes. The German airline previously offered Internet through Connexion, but the service failed because, surprisingly, not enough people were using it (and Boeing decided to stop footing the bill). Lufthansa will also be offering text messaging, e-mail, and data access for cell phones, but not phone calls. Lufthansa's service will be launching in 2008 as well.
From Engadget and Engadget
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Media Players for AA Passengers
Thanks to a new deal with Archos, American Airlines will be handing out portable media players along with stale pretzels and warm bottles of water to their passengers. Business and First Class passengers on international flights out of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco will now find Archos 704 portable media devices (pictured) waiting for them pre-loaded with films and music, along with Bose QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise-Canceling headphones.
Meanwhile, passengers on flights between Chicago O'Hare and LAX will be able to get their mitts on Archos 604 devices, complete with earbuds that we hope get some sort of disinfecting between flights. The 604 will again be free for those at the front of the cabin, while the the poor sods in Coach Class will of course need to pay if they want one.
Alas, flyers won't get to keep these costly portable media players, and we have serious doubts about anybody figuring out how to use these things, since they're no iPods in terms of user-friendliness.
No word on how much they'll cost to use in Economy class, but hopefully it'll be a better deal than the $2 they charge for a bag of nuts these days.
From Engadget
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