Travelers flying on Virgin America over the holidays will get free in-flight Wi-Fi thanks to Google, the companies said Monday.
Google and Virgin America are teaming up to offer free Wi-Fi Internet service for all Virgin America passengers traveling between November 10, 2009, and January 15, 2010.
The Gogo Wi-Fi service, which was rolled out to Virgin America's entire fleet of planes in May, is normally available for $12.95 for flights of over three hours. It's $9.95 for flights between one and a half hours and three hours. Flights of less than an hour and a half are $5.95. There's a special deal for people using smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled handhelds that costs $7.95 for flights over one and a half hours.
Virgin America estimates that between 12 percent and 15 percent of its customers are using the Gogo Wi-Fi service. On some of its cross-country flights, between 20 percent and 25 percent of its passengers are using the service.
"Since the launch of Wi-Fi on all of our planes, we've seen an overwhelmingly positive response from travelers," Porter Gale, vice president of marketing at Virgin America, said in a statement.
Virgin America hopes that offering the Wi-Fi service will help it win more customers. In a recent survey the airline conducted it found that more than half the respondents said that Wi-Fi would influence their choice of airline. Google and Virgin America are calling the free Wi-Fi promotion a gift to their customers. But for Virgin America it is also a way to give customers a taste of the inflight Wi-Fi service, which will hopefully whet their appetite for Internet service on future Virgin America flights.
(Credit:
Virgin America)
Last November, when Virgin America debuted Gogo's Wi-Fi service on a single flight, it stated that by the second quarter of 2009, the service would be available fleet-wide. On Wednesday, it announced that it had reached its goal.
Virgin America has done that with GoGo Inflight Internet, enabling all Virgin America customers to experience Internet service at 37,000 feet.
The company demonstrated its Wi-Fi tech by hosting a Skype video chat conference with Oprah Winfrey during a live taping of her show. The segment is set to air Thursday, May 21. Unless you're a billionaire media personality, however, don't expect to be doing any video chatting yourself on flights. Virgin America doesn't typically allow voice over IP (VoIP) products like Skype due to concerns about keeping the cabin as quiet as possible.
The Gogo service is available for $12.95 for daytime flights of more than three hours, $9.95 for daytime flights of less than three hours, $5.95 on red-eye flights, and $7.95 for handheld devices.
Virgin America is teaming up with YouTube for its big coming-out party for its Wi-Fi in the sky service.
The California-based airline will launch its Gogo Inflight Internet service on November 22 in a flight over San Francisco. To show off how robust the in-flight Internet service is, the company is planning to stream a live video feed from the plane down to the ground to an audience attending the YouTube Live concert in San Francisco.
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Virgin America)
The Gogo service will be available to all passengers on a single Wi-Fi enabled plane starting November 24. And by the second quarter of 2009, the company expects to offer Wi-Fi on its entire fleet of planes.
As part of the YouTube live video feed demonstration, 30 Rock's Keith Powell will be part of the show. He'll be filming a segment in-flight for his Web mini-series with co-star Katrina Bowden. After the flight, guests will then go to the YouTube Live event.
CNET Reviews editor Kent German and CNET TV correspondent Kara Tsuboi are planning to be on hand for the event, so check out their blog posts and video of the event. It should be cool.
Virgin America isn't the only U.S. airline to launch in-flight Wi-Fi. American Airlines debuted its in-flight Internet access service in August on 15 of its 767-200 airplanes. Delta Air Lines has said that it will outfit its planes by the middle of next year with Wi-Fi.
American and Delta area also using the Gogo service from Aircell. The cost of the Gogo service is $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours.
Other airlines, such as JetBlue Airways, has been testing its Wi-Fi service on routes between San Francisco and New York. Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines are also testing in-flight Wi-Fi. And others such as United Airlines are considering offering Wi-Fi, but it hasn't announced tests or a commercial launch.
American Airlines will be offering Wi-Fi on 15 of its 767-200 airplanes that fly cross country.
(Credit: American Airlines)American Airlines passengers will now have Wi-Fi access on some flights.
The airline said Wednesday that it has finally launched its in-flight Internet access service via Wi-Fi on 15 of its 767-200 airplanes. The service, called Gogo, will be offered on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami. The cost is $12.95 per flight. Passengers will be able to sign up when they boot up their browsers.
The airline will be restricting the use of voice over IP services, such as Skype, and it will still restrict the use of cell phones in flight.
Gogo is a service offered by Aircell, which is also providing Wi-Fi access to Delta Air Lines planes. Earlier this month, Delta said it was outfitting all of its domestic fleet with Wi-Fi by the middle of next year. Virgin America, which is also using Aircell's Gogo service, will launch its service by the end of the year, the company has said.
And JetBlue Airways is testing its Wi-Fi access on routes between San Francisco and New York. Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines are also testing in-flight Wi-Fi. And others such as United Airlines are considering offering Wi-Fi, but it hasn't announced tests or a commercial launch.
Aircell's pricing is uniform across all the airlines that use it. The company charges $9.95 for flights of three hours or less. And it's $12.95 for all flights over three hours. Initially, American Airlines will only be offering Wi-Fi on coast-to-coast flights.
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