American Airlines To Offer Wi-Fi In Planes

Firmafest writes "In USA Today there's a scoop that American Airlines will offer Wi-Fi on domestic flights. Price is approx. $10 to get connected. Being a frequent international flyer I hope this will catch on. The LA Times reports that the cost is about $100,000 to equip a plane. While that number seems high, it will probably be worth it. If I had a choice between two flights both equally good, I'd pick the Wi-Fi enabled one." The article also says that JetBlue and Southwest Airlines are at least experimenting with Wi-Fi access aboard, while Delta already offers it.

Virgin America as well...

[nweaver]

Virgin america also has WiFi on at least some of their flights.

No international flights

[hemp]

You are going to be disappointed as an international flyer as internet access will only be deployed on domestic MD80s and 737s.

For flights over water, a satellite based system would be required and American Airlines is not using a satellite based system.

Re:Boeing tried this with Connexion. And failed.

[ptbarnett]

Interestingly enough, Connexion was a partnership between Boeing, American, United and Delta airlines. I wonder what has changed...

Connexion was primarily on international flights, and used satellites. It was a lot more expensive to install ($500,000 per plane) and significantly more expensive to use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connexion_by_Boeing [wikipedia.org]

Avoid American Airlines

[FunkyELF]

I just flew AA and they charged me $40 for two suitcases. $15 for the first and $25 for the second. I understand what they're trying to do here but the problem is that their flights show up as cheaper on search results. You can think of it as a $40 discount if you don't have any checked baggage or a $25 discount if you only have one checked bag....but the searches should reflect that.

Already happening

[greenfield]

AA has been offering wireless on several SFO <-> JFK flights for quite a while. And as another poster pointed out, Virgin is also offering this on many flights.

I hit speedtest.net [speedtest.net] from both a recent American Airlines [samgreenfield.com] flight and a Virgin America [samgreenfield.com] flight (Bonus: Verizon Fios and TWC stats, too!).

The connections from the flights were good enough to watch Battlestar Galactica on hulu.com. (I am a big geek.)

In both cases, Internet service was provided by Gogo [gogoinflight.com].

Re:DANGER DANGER

[jank1887]

no cell phones on planes is an FCC mandate, not an FAA mandate:

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cellonplanes.html [fcc.gov]

"Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules prohibit the use of cellular phones using the 800 MHz frequency and other wireless devices on airborne aircraft. This ban was put in place because of potential interference to wireless networks on the ground. "

Gogo in-flight Wifi already in service

[nekdut]

Other than the fact that they are expanding the routes on which this is offered, I'm not sure how this is new news. Gogo has been offering service on trans-con American Airlines flights from LA to the east coast for at least 6 months now.

I've used it a few times, and it works OK. Speeds were reasonable (100-150KB download speeds, ping times comparable to mobile broadband, 150-200ms) and I think there was only 1 dead spot for a few minutes during the times that I was logged in. They did not block VPN access so you could conceivably use VoIP once you VPN, but I did not try this.

A link to the actual service (rather than USA today or a blog) would help too:

http://www.gogoinflight.com/ [gogoinflight.com]

Re:DANGER DANGER

[Tony Hoyle]

They tested an old busted up plane (IIRC they installed the instruments themselves even) and by turning the cellphone output up way high they were able to have some effect.
Then they tested a real plane and even ramping up the signal to max they were able to have no effect. At all.

The conclusion at the end had more to do with not getting in trouble with the FAA than the actual results.
 

Re:Southwest's test program speeds

[Virtucon]

That's Row44 and is satellite based. American should have looked at that solution before going with Gogo since Row44 has substantially more bandwidth and can be used internationally. Gogo is only going to be domestic US only for now and I doubt that they'll have portable islands for cell sites over water.

Insofar as overall success, CBB (Boeing) failed because of costs both in terms of Airline implementation and of usage prices. Panasonic has picked up the pieces of that network and is attempting to repackage it with their own onboard inflight entertainment system. It will be interesting to see given the current economic issues facing airlines that this system will get implemented at all.

Right now airlines are facing a difficult time, credit is tight so leasing new aircraft is more expensive, fuel is still high and there's not as much business traffic. Providing Internet on the planes has to make economic sense and generate revenue that exceeds the weight of carrying the gear on the aircraft.

Re:Fuel burn

[colinnwn]

Add a 1 to 3% fuel burn penalty for the life of that aircraft and recalculate. Satellite based internet requires a relatively large antenna that bulges off the top of the fuselage. Not aerodynamic, not green, not cheap, and not efficient. Not sure what if any fuel burn penalty there is for cellular based internet antennas.

Re:Boeing tried this with Connexion. And failed.

[Koreantoast]

Boeing's Connexion failed in large part because of bad luck. They introduced their Connexion service back in summer 2001 with large launch customers such as American, Delta, and United Airlines. Unfortunately a few months later you had 9/11 which financially crippled nearly every domestic American airline and brought deep-sixed Connexion's entire business plan. The company struggled to keep it viable for a while, but the small number of foreign airlines and shipping companies wasn't enough; they needed large airlines with heavy business traffic to keep the program viable.

Re:Please turn on your electronics?

[devilspgd]

Most long-haul flights are available overnight, these planes tend to spend 20+ hours a day in the air so even on the longest routes they'll have 2 flights every 3 days. Anything in the 8-10 hours range is almost definitely doing two flights a day.

Commuter planes tend to be in service from 6-7am through 10-11pm, and so 5-9 flights per day seems to be about typical, although some routes will be higher.