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Airlines to Offer In-Flight Internet Service

Posted by Zonk on from the can't-ever-get-away-from-the-email dept.

Ponca City, We Love You writes "JetBlue Airways will soon begin testing a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one aircraft, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer a broader Web experience in the coming months, probably priced at about $10 a flight. A recent survey found that 26 percent of leisure travelers would pay $10 for Internet access on a two-to-four-hour flight and 45 percent would pay that amount for a flight longer than four hours. The airlines plans to turn their planes into the equivalent of a wireless hot spot once the aircraft reaches its cruising altitude but service will not be available on takeoff and landing. While the technology could allow travelers to make phone calls over the Internet, most carriers say they have no plans to allow voice communications."

3 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Worst nightmare by wombatmobile · · Score: 3, Interesting

    FTA: "Many travelers find the prospect of phone calls much less palatable than having a seatmate quietly browsing e-mail."

    Yes. Imagine sitting in the center seat between two obese passengers talking non-stop about things you don't want to know about.

    What would you do?

    What could you possibly do at that point?

    1. Re:Worst nightmare by kidgenius · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A couple of differences, one being is that during a face to face conversation, you tend to not talk extremely loud. Some phones incorporate a slight "echo" so that you can actually hear yourself talking (much like landlines). Many phones don't, and what ends up happening is people yell into the phone, which is exactly what Alexander Graham Bell discovered when he first invented the thing. Additionally, we perceive face-to-face conversations as normal. Cellphone conversations are just weird to us humans (being a relatively new thing). Also, and perhaps slightly more nosy, people like to listen to other people's conversations, and when you can only hear one half of the conversation, it probably annoys people on some unconscious level. It's just programmed into us that communication exists face-to-face, or at least that's how it primarily has been for eons.

  2. The Internet is the second most important feature. by dada21 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...but I need a power source. I usually travel with my "lite" laptop, and a spare battery, but even that's not always enough. Some of my flights (ORD->BOM) last nearly 20 hours (with 1 stop, where I could theoretically recharge somewhere).

    I don't mind paying upwards of $40 for a flight for web access, actually, but I'd assume few others would. Speed/latency isn't an issue, but I do wonder how well it would work over large bodies of water.