American Airlines Will Expand Wi-Fi Access in the Sky
American will move from the trial phase by installing Aircell's Gogo Inflight Internet on 300 domestic aircraft over the next two years, the company said Tuesday.
Thousands of passengers traveling on more than a dozen of American's Boeing 767-200 airplanes have had access to the in-flight Internet service on nonstop flights between New York's JFK and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami.
"Our trial over the past six months offered customers the choice to remain connected to work, home or elsewhere when flying on American Airlines," said Dan Garton, American's executive vice president of marketing. "And it also gave us the ability to study customers' willingness to take advantage of high-speed, onboard connectivity and to gauge how the service performed technically in a variety of settings over an extended period of time."
"Customer feedback was extremely positive and, as a result, we will be working with American to bring Gogo to domestic MD-80 aircraft and B737 aircraft as quickly as possible," said John Happ, executive vice president of airlines at Aircell. "We are pleased that the results were positive and that we have decided to move forward."
Aircell's Gogo service, which uses three antennas installed outside the airplane to connect to Aircell's mobile broadband network, allows passengers to surf the Web, check e-mail, send instant messages, and also gives passengers access to a corporate virtual private network.
Once the plane reaches 10,000 feet, passengers get the okay to turn on Wi-Fi devices, including PDAs, smartphones and laptops. Cell-phone and Voice over Internet Protocol services are not provided.
"In-flight Internet is extremely important to travelers, evidenced by American's decision to expand Gogo service beyond their existing Gogo-equipped aircraft," Happ...
