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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.

4 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Not particularly useful by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What good is WiFi when most of the flights I fly on don't give me anything to plug my laptop in to anyways? I'd even consider paying a few dollars for electric service on a flight so I could plug in and use my laptop for the duration of the flight. As it is, my laptop run time on flights is strictly limited to the charge on my batteries before I get on the plane.

    And if I'm going to use my latop with WiFi on, that would only drain by battery slightly quicker than without it.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  2. Southwest's test program speeds by randomchicagomac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was on a Southwest flight that was testing this out about a month ago, where it was free for passengers. I ran speakeasy's speed test on it, http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ , and got about 3000 kbps down, and something like 200 kbps up. I ran the test about five minutes after they announced that we could use the service, and it seemed like more than half the people on the plane had laptops out and were playing with the service, even though none of us knew that the service would be available until we got on the plane.

  3. Re:Torrent by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not exactly. Generally, all of the airspace over a territory is within the jurisdiction of that terrority. However, at least in the United States, the federal government has sole jurisdiction over the navigable airways; state jurisdiction does not apply. There's a very interesting blog article about airspace jurisdiction, written about 1 year and half ago on a college legal blog.

    I believe the airspace over international waters, is treated exactly like the international waters themselves.

    IANAL, TINLA, etc.

  4. Re:Avoid American Airlines by berashith · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Exactly. I flew yesterday, and only due to the potential charge did I carry on my bag. My laptop bag was packed to the gills also. So many people did this exact same thing that 9 or 10 of them had to check their carry on because there was no more room anywhere on the plane. The lack of space was verified by the flight attendants stalking the aisles for about 45 minutes re-arranging bags in the overhead bins.

    I spent 1.5 hours boarding a flight that was in the air for 1.5 hours.

    The policy may not seem self defeating to the execs, but I will not be a return customer on airlines that force this type of behavior.