Several Aircraft To Be Equipped With Gogo Service By EOY

In time for one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, Aircell announced recently its Gogo Inflight Internet service is now commercially available for passengers on select Virgin America flights. The launch marks the beginning of the carrier's fleet-wide commercial rollout of the service.

On November 22, Virgin America hosted the successful beta launch of Gogo Inflight Internet and the first ever "air-to-ground" video stream to YouTube Live -- YouTube's first official real-world user event. Virgin America's first Gogo enabled plane (N638VA -- "My Other Ride is a Spaceship") circled the skies above San Francisco with special guests, media, and all-star bloggers testing out Gogo on laptops, smartphones and PDAs.

The first week of Gogo service was launched in beta as a complimentary surprise for guests over the Thanksgiving holiday. With the official commercial launch, pricing will be set at $12.95 for flights over 3 hours and $9.95 for flights of 3 hours or fewer. Multiple Virgin America aircraft will offer Gogo by the end of 2008, with the service expected to be available on all Virgin America flights by the second quarter of 2009. The service will go live on each aircraft as it is equipped.

"By first committing to and now beginning to execute on a fleet-wide roll-out of Gogo, Virgin America is once again raising the bar for the standard of a superior inflight guest experience," said Jack Blumenstein, Aircell President and CEO. "With two US airlines now offering the Gogo service and more coming soon, today marks the next step toward ubiquitous Inflight Internet."

The Gogo Inflight Internet system, in conjunction with Aircell's 3G network, turns Virgin America's aircraft into flying Wi-Fi hotspots, enabling passengers to surf the Web, email, instant message, access a corporate VPN and more. During the beta period and beyond, Virgin America is encouraging its frequent fliers and Wi-Fi advisory board members to provide feedback on the service.

Virgin America CEO David Cush said early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. "Our guests are enthusiastic about the full, unedited Internet experience that Gogo provides -- and they expect nothing less from Virgin America's tech-savvy and innovative service," said Cush. "We look forward to being the first US carrier to offer the Gogo service fleet-wide and to the next phase of the project -- integrating mobile communications capabilities into our touch-screen entertainment platform RED."

FMI: www.virginamerica.com, www.aircell.com, www.gogoinflight.com