Delta announces plans to equip their entire fleet of more than 330 aircraft with in-flight WiFi service to be available in first and economy classes by Summer 2009. The Aircell Gogo service will run $9.95 or $12.95 for trips under or over three hours, respectively, and will allow connection of any WiFi enabled device.
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Qantas A380 Virtual Cabin Tour: The new Qantas A380 is on sale now for selected flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Los Angeles for travel from late October 2008. The Qantas A380 is also on sale for selected flights from Sydney to Singapore and London for travel from mid January 2009.
Cathay Pacific Virtual Cabin Tour: all three classes in their new aircrafts have been upgraded to give you more comfort, personal space and individual privacy in the air. Have a look at the new First, Business, and Economy classes.
Food and drink sales facilitated by Red are the foundation of the airline’s ancillary revenue effort indicated Charles Ogilvie, Director of Inflight Entertainment & Partnerships at Virgin America. Ogilvie said “We charge for everything except water and soda, so we make money from food and drink, and also from things like premium IFE content.” Virgin America is now earning thousands of dollars a day from onboard sales of food and other offerings.
US Airways announced that it will no longer be offering in-flight movies on domestic US flights starting in November. The move was announced as a fuel saving measure…at 500 pounds per plane, the in-flight entertainment systems weighed too much for the carrier to justify leaving them on board. The carrier said it will save $10 million per year in fuel costs by getting rid of the movies. Given the fuel crunch its hard to argue the move but unless all the other carriers follow suit why would you choose to fly US Airways? Unless of course you usually bring your own entertainment (BYOE) via iPod/iPhone when flying.
Inflight Online news reports on progress being made by two big names in passenger broadband. Aircell which is rolling out the Gogo in-flight WiFi services has secured additional funding that will be used to keep the company afloat during the roll-out of their service. Panasonic has announced VT iDirect as the source of the satellite IP router technology that will be used for their Ku-band satellite broadband service, eXConnect, expected to launch in the first half of next year.
Engadget reports that American Airlines will be testing the Gogo in-flight WiFi service on unspecified round-trip flight from New York’s JFK and Los Angeles’ LAX beginning on June 25. The service will be free for passengers during the testing, but will eventually run users $12.95 for flights greater than three hours and $9.95 for trips under that threshold.
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.
