The Wall Street Journal’s technology columnist Walt Mossberg takes a test flight on a business jet equipped with Aircell’s Gogo in-flight WiFi service to give the service a test run. It is a data only service and he used Dell and Apple laptops, a BlackBerry, a Windows Mobile phone and an iPhone (all WifI equipped) to perform all the most common online tasks.
Gogo launches in 2008, likely in July, on select flights on American Airlines and later in the year on Virgin America. The Gogo service will cost a flat fee of $12.95 for flights of three hours or longer, and $9.95 for shorter trips.
Video: Mossberg on Gogo
JetBlue’s in-flight WiFi service started with only allowing passengers to check email via Yahoo Mail or BlackBerry Mail or chat with friends via Yahoo Messenger but that limited service is being expanded to include email via Gmail, AOL Mail, Hotmail and Windows Live Mail. JetBlue has also partnered with Amazon.com to offer a customized in-flight version of Amazon.com for shopping.
From Wired Magazine’s playlist from issue 16.06…
Imagine: An airline you look forward to flying. Flights on VA are inexpensive (first class is almost affordable), and in our experience, lines are comparatively short. Hungry? Press a button on your seat-back console and a sandwich arrives. Bored? Play Doom. Think the guy in 18B is cute? Text him. Here’s to a company whose services feel like they were designed by actual humans for actual humans.
For those who have flown Virgin America, would you agree?
I saw you in your seat as I was boarding the plane and thought to myself you were someone I wanted to chat with. I’m sitting in the back of the plane. Do you want to chat?
Would you accept such an invite? One of the features consistently mentioned as a feature on the next generation IFE systems is In-Seat Chat (also sometimes referred to as Seat-to-Seat Text Messaging) which is frankly a feature I have a hard time wrapping my head around. IM or text messaging, to me, is more of a method of communicating with someone I already know and not something I would initiate with a stranger. Might be useful when traveling as a group but you usually end up in seats in the same general vicinity as your travel companions so its probably just as easy to start a verbal chat unless you are trying to observe some level of in-flight etiquette (a topic for a future blog post) and don’t want to disturb your fellow passengers in which case it might come in handy. Unless each passenger includes some type of profile why would you initiate a chat with a stranger sitting on the opposite end of the plane or even a few rows up/back? The in-seat chat feature also is to include chat rooms but chat rooms are so the Internet of the 90’s on top of which if the chat rooms are limited to passengers on a given flight the odds of having a decent size chat room are pretty slim. Now, in lieu of the chat rooms what I would find more compelling is In-Flight Twitter where passengers on the flight could micro-blog and use @ replies to start conversations even from opposite ends of the plane and if necessary take that conversation into the in-seat chat client should the conversation need to go into more detail.
What’s your take on in-flight/in-seat chat?
Flickr user Crashworks has some excellent pics of Virgin America’s RED IFE system in action. Below are some samples.
in-seat chat
games
television
maps
power
Both JetBlue and American Airlines are making plans to roll out onboard Internet access to passengers while in flight. Even though the plans are somewhat different in scope—JetBlue is only offering e-mail and IM connectivity, while American has plans for full ‘Net access—and will only initially be available on certain flights, both represent a significant step towards full online connectivity at 35,000 feet.
via 
Artur Bergman of O’Reilly shares his experience on one of Virgin America’s inaugural flights:
Doom
In-Seat Chat
The in-flight entertainment system (IFE) is really cool. I ended up chatting with Xeni, listening to music and playing Doom (on a plane!). For the journeymap, they use Google Maps.
via O’Reilly
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The Wall Street Journal’s technology columnist Walt Mossberg takes a test flight on a business jet equipped with Aircell’s Gogo in-flight WiFi service to give the service a test run. It is a data only service and he used Dell and Apple laptops, a BlackBerry, a Windows Mobile phone and an iPhone (all WifI equipped) to perform all the most common online tasks.
