The more I think about it, maybe wireless internet in aeroplanes could be a reasonable money spinner. In the past I was a little skeptical, but now I’m hovering somewhere in the middle between advocacy and denial. Even when sitting in business class, I really don’t see that many people on the plane opening a laptop computer, but now with phones having wifi and many people downloading email that way, it could well be something people will pay for. I was reading this article from Flight Global about SouthWest that got me thinking about it again. Here are a couple of quotes:
“email blows everything out of the water” and “Uptake rates have been between 5% and 20% depending on flight length.”
On a different topic, you may remember me treading cautiously when discussing American’s latest social media venture the other day. Following on from that story I got a smile this morning reading this line from travel blogger Jared Blank on the same topic.
So much easier to get away with jokes when you are a member of the same group the joke is directed at.
November 1, 2009 at 5:33 am
I am writing this from DL 1033 somewhere over Kansas. I am using Gogo Wifi and today its free in honor of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
In flight Wifi is cool. Yes email is the killer app – but as email lessens in importance in favor of things like Twitter (lord help me for saying that) and Facebook – these other rich apps are becoming increasingly important for the whole experience.
Cheers