Southwest Details In-flight Wi-Fi Plans, Yahoo! Partnership
in-flight posts
Delta Begins In-Flight Wi-Fi Rollout (and It's Free Until Next Year)
Delta said it was coming before 2009, and it's looking like it's actually managed to pull it off. The struggling airline is indicating that most of its most commonly used shuttle craft between New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. are currently being upgraded to offer in-flight Wi-Fi -- and it'll even be free until the end of the year.The service, provided by Aircell, will be $9.95 on flights less than three hours and $12.95 for anything longer. These short flights will all fit into the former category, just the beginning of the system-wide roll-out that Delta wants to put in place next year. However, that expansion will be dealt an early blow next year as Delta replaces many of those shuttle flights with contract carriers that don't offer such fancy features. In other words, we're still not quite to the point where mid-air surfing is standard fare, but we're getting close. [From: washingtonpost.com]
Online Porn On Planes? Not If Flight Attendants Can Help It
This all comes after American Airlines installed wireless Internet on 15 of its planes for a testing period a few weeks ago. Without citing any specific examples of travelers viewing smut or any other objectionable content -- but perhaps acting on a story that came out a few weeks ago about airlines not blocking in-flight Internet porn -- the Association of Professional Flight Attendants have contacted American's executives to voice their concerns. A union rep said they don't want to become "moral policemen" on board, but they also don't want to deal with the inevitable problems.
Naturally, the issue hinges on where to draw the line. The union cites the fact that passengers are barred from making Wi-Fi phone calls on planes and don't seem to have any qualms about it, so why not block porn and violence too? Others wonder whether to block sites or words, and if the airlines will even limit what DVDs a passenger watches. The one point nobody seems to be making is that you can still buy skin mags in the airport lounge. Shouldn't that have been addressed already? [Source: Bloomberg via Wired]
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]In-Flight Cell Phone Calls Now Allowed On Emirates
We've all heard the myths and rumors surrounding midair cell phone use; about how accidentally leaving your phone on while on a flight could result in you and every other person aboard plunging to their doom. Whether or not those conceptions are well-founded, they've been used as excuses to ban midair cell phone calls on pretty much every airline in the world -- until now. At last, certain flights on Emirates Airways are allowing passengers to officially get their calls and texts on.
The first fully authorized calls were made on a flight between Dubai and Casablanca, letting passengers annoy their plane-mates with inane conversations about how weird it is to be talking on a cell phone on a flight. To keep the annoyance to a minimum, Emirates flight crews advised passengers to put their phones on silent mode and keep the volume down. Those warnings tend to be wholly ineffective in curbing rude cell phone behavior in movie theaters, but since flying is a somewhat riskier proposition than film viewing, here's hoping people listen a little more closely.
From Engadget
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Audio/Video, Computers, E-Mail Addiction
Alaska Air to Test In-Flight Wi-Fi this Spring
This whole in-flight Wi-Fi thing is really taking off (induce pun groans now). Alaska Air is the latest company to announce it will be testing wireless broadband access on its jets.
Starting in the Spring of '08. Alaska Air will outfit one of its Boeing 737's with a system from Row 44, a company that specializes in Internet service for the commercial aviation industry. If it all goes well, the airline will outfit all 114 of its craft with the service which allows Wi-Fi enabled devices like PDA's and laptops to access the internet, e-mail, and even an on-board library of entertainment content.
There's no word on whether Alaska Air's system will allow access to VOIP communications like Skype as Virgin America's will, but it is highly likely. So even if in-flight cell calls don't become common place, we still may need to listen to every phone addict with a Skype account (by the way, we really love Skype, seriously... just not on our planes).
From Engadget
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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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In-Flight Cell-Phones a Go In Europe
While the FCC and FAA hold in-flight calling and texting at bay here in the US, the European Aviation Safety Agency is on the march to rid the world of this one last bastion of cell-phone-free space, at least in the E.U.. Ryanair, Qantas, and Air France have been testing in-flight mobile use for the past several months. The results of the trial have been impressive enough for the EASA agency to give approval to Airbus' OnAir service, which will be used by Ryanair and Qantas on flights this year.
Good news for those who would rather keep airplanes cell-phone-free: The flight crew will maintain control over the system, which means they can shut off voice channels when, say, it's time for everyone to sleep, while still leaving text-messaging and data capability intact. The service will roll out initially in short haul flights in Western Europe, though Airbus has stated its intent to take the program global, if it can win approval elsewhere.
From Engadget
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