HotelChatter's assistant editor Jenna hopped an American Airlines flight the other day--and found herself on a Gogo WiFi-equipped 767. How was it?

I used Gogo on AA Flight 15 from JFK to SFO on Wednesday morning. You can't access the wireless on the ground, but once we were at cruising altitude, the signal was strong, fast and consistent.

I had some issues with the connection at first: Turns out, having more than one tab open in Firefox kinda screws with the system when you're purchasing the service. I put in payment info and hit purchase three times and kept getting an activation error message, so I went onto the customer service chat where a lovely staffer (or computerized staffer) told me to either restart Firefox or try my purchase in another browser. Voila, one quick purchasing attempt with Safari and $12.95 later, I was in.

The connection was impressive; I think I was only disconnected once during the flight. And I was even streaming some videos off of Hulu for a bit. It stalled three or four times when I was doing that, but I'd say everything was about the speed of Starbucks' AT&T WiFi.

Verdict: For the six-ish hour flight, it's totally worth the $12.95.

Related Stories:
· Virgin America Launching WiFi on November 22 [Jaunted]
· Delta Gearing Up Its WiFi Fleet [Jaunted]
· Liveblogging an American WiFi Flight [Jaunted]]]> pbb 2008-11-07T14:01:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/11/6/7563/57501

Last week, Hawaiian Airlines announced that they’d be acquiring some new Airbus A330-200 jets for delivery in 2011 to speed up their transition to an Airbus fleet in advance of the A350s that will be delivered in 2017. We can only hope that they’ll still go through with upgrading their existing Boeing planes with those sexy winglets.

Just after announcing that they were opening the checkbook for these new planes, the airline's third quarter earnings were down about 70 percent--but at least they reported a profit. In light of all this news, we wanted to take a look and see if Hawaiian is still the ideal carrier for crossing the Pacific.]]> kjb 2008-11-06T13:45:08-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/11/4/73827/0964

With all the recent flap regarding Virgin Atlantic, we took a look around the web to see what exactly passengers think of the airline now that it's fired 13 people for griping about customers on Facebook. Despite the news, people still seem to think that it’s one of the ideal carriers when it comes to crossing the pond.]]> kjb 2008-11-04T11:30:07-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/10/20/71814/791

OpenSkies started flying between New York and Amsterdam last week, after deciding earlier this summer to remove all its economy seats.

So now that it's a verifiable all-business-class carrier, what's it like? Blogger Will Allen was on a recent flight--but seemed more interested in the shower situation on the ground than the in-flight service:

One hour later my cell phone buzzed, and I received my answer: No showers in the OpenSkies Amsterdam lounge. However, they hastened to add, public showers are available free of charge at Schiphol, so long as one brings one's own towel and soap.

But business travel obsessive Joe Brancatelli has more scoop:]]> kjb 2008-10-22T16:30:49-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/10/21/72320/253

With the majority of their flights landing there and a new terminal on the way, it's pretty clear that JetBlue loves itself some JFK.

But the carrier has slowly started adding flights to Orlando International Airport as well, and beginning early next year, MCO will see a new JetBlue flight to Bogotá. If the service on this new offering is similar to the carrier's other international efforts, then we're in for a treat.]]> kjb 2008-10-21T13:00:48-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/10/16/71249/553

Throughout all the bankruptcies, fuel cost woes and airline travel nightmares this year, the only noise out of Porter Airlines has been the addition of flights to Chicago. But it seems that no news is good news, as the carrier stacks up positive reviews.

Several Flyertalk users continue to praise the airline, including this one:

I just flew Porter for the first time down to EWR for a business meeting in NYC.... Check in and the departure lounge are great. The departure lounge is as good as the AC Maple Leaf Club in Pearson or one of the new UA Red Carpet Clubs in the US. The flight was about half full. We were the only flight at US Customs in EWR.

I do a lot of business-related traveling between Toronto and BOS so I'll be buying Porter passes as soon as Porter starts BOS service.

As we mentioned less than a month ago, Alitalia is still holding on--and somehow has found enough money to fill the fuel tanks. Though the airline is still flying, not many reviews have been trickling in. But on ReviewCentre, one user doesn't have anything nice to say:

We flew Alitalia from AMS-MIL-AMS. It was one of the worst airlines I've ever flown and I will avoid Alitalia from now on. The service was terrible, the plane was ancient. Never again. I don't understand how KLM can partner with such a terrible company!