George S. May Business Blog

Aircell’s Gogo signs on with United Airlines

United Airlines has committed to adding Aircell Gogo broadband service to their planes. To start, they will be installing the service in 13 Boeing 757’s that fly from New York to L.A. and San Francisco.

This marks the airline that has signed on with Aircell, joining American Airlines, Delta, Air Canada, and Virgin America; several of which are reported to be in advanced stages of rolling out the service.

United Airlines says that they expect to have the service ready to go by the second half of this year and will be offering it on transcontinental flights for a fee of $12.95. Down the line, they also plan to offer the service, on flights under three hours, for $9.95.

I personally have not had the opportunity to test the service, but in reviewing various reports I have found that most users are pretty pleased:

“We took the Gogo service for a spin on Virgin America back in November, and I was very impressed with the speed, and ease of use. As someone who lives in a United hub city, a fleetwide rollout can’t come fast enough for me.” – Scott Carmichael, gadling.com

“I was skeptical of the whole thing like most of you were, but after yesterday I’m completely sold … it’s finally here and better than expected.” – Peter Ha, techcrunch.com

“I used Gogo on AA Flight 15 from JFK to SFO on Wednesday morning…once we were at cruising altitude, the signal was strong, fast and consistent. The connection was impressive…I was even streaming some videos off of Hulu for a bit…I’d say everything was about the speed of Starbucks’ AT&T WiFi. Verdict: For the six-ish hour flight, it’s totally worth the $12.95.” – pbb, jaunted.com

For a person who makes their living traveling and writing, this feature is quite exciting. The fact that most reports approve of its functionality has me salivating all the more.

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