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."
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