To Tweet From 30,000 Feet: Picking Planes Wired for Wi-Fi
By Scott McCartney March 21, 2012
More passengers are downloading books, sending Tweets and updating their Facebook pages in the middle of a flight-even as they complain about steep prices.
Currently, about 1,700 planes in the U.S. have Internet access, including the entire fleets of Virgin America and AirTran, Delta Air Lines' entire domestic fleet, and a sizable number of planes flown by American and Southwest Airlines.
Airlines say Wi-Fi usage-the percentage of passengers paying for Internet access-is picking up, driven partly by the popularity of tablet computers and partly because more planes have the service. Currently about 8% of passengers use the service, up from 4% at the end of 2010, according to In-Stat, a research and consulting firm. That likely will reach 10% of passengers by the end of this year, In-Stat says.
Virgin America, which has both wireless hot spots and standard power plugs on all its 50 planes, says some cross-country "nerd bird" flights between tech strongholds like San Francisco and Boston have averaged 26% of passengers paying for airborne Wi-Fi service, even on redeye flights. Overall, the airline is hitting about a 16% usage rate. Airlines say popular activities include book downloads, Facebook updates and real-time flight-tracking.
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