American Airlines to extend its in-flight internet service to more planes

American Airlines has announced that it is extending its in-flight wireless internet service to more planes. At present, American Airlines, based in Fort Worth, Texas, the United States, offers Aircell’s Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi on 100 of its MD-80 series planes, which is two-thirds of the planned 150 Gogo installations that it has planned to be completed by the end of 2009.

In a press release, American Airlines said it is aiming to extend the onboard wireless internet service to half of its fleet over the next two years.

American Airlines, a subsidiary of AMR Corporation, launched the in-flight Wi-Fi service in July 2008.

It was the first airline to introduce Aircell’s Gogo service, by offering in-flight internet facility on 15 of its Boeing 767-200 planes that fly non-stop between John F Kennedy International Airport in New York and Los Angles, San Francisco, and Miami.

Soon afterwards, Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, followed suit. Then it was the turn of AirTran Airways, the low-cost carrier based in Florida, the United States.

In March 2009, Virgin America, another US-based budget airline, became the first carrier to offer in-flight internet access fleet-wide, followed by the fleet-wide offering of AirTran Airways.

The other carriers that currently offer onboard Wi-Fi include Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines (through its merger with Delta Air Lines), US Airways, United
Airlines, and Air Canada.

To use the in-flight Wi-Fi service, passengers have to sign up on the ground and then they get connected to the facility when the aircraft reaches an altitude of 10,000 feet, with the browsers connecting to the in-flight portal of Aircell’s Gogo.

Dan Garton, executive vice-president (marketing) of American Airlines, said in the press release that that the airline has received “positive feedback” from customers who have been using the onboard Wi-Fi service to stay connected while flying.

“Our aim,” Garton added, “is to offer our customers an opportunity to continue with their work or personal business even while they are 35,000 feet above the ground.”

Meanwhile, Gogo is celebrating its first anniversary of making the service commercially available on the planes of American Airlines.

In a statement, Gogo said that the percentage of customers who connected to its service went up by 17% in the past one year.