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Tags: In-Flight WiFi / WiFi / Airline News / Aircell / US Airways / Gogo / American / Virgin America / Airtran / Delta / United / Travel Deals / → All Tags

Celebrate The Summer Of In-Flight WiFi With 50% Off Gogo

We make a huge deal out of in-flight WiFi, but it's kind of a crazy thing to be able to surf freely and chat with friends wirelessly while 35,000-feet above nowheresville. But just in case you still haven't been convinced that a few hours of internet access is worth spending yet more cash on your flight, the largest provider of in-flight WiFi, Gogo by Aircell, is offering a discount code good through the rest of the summer.

Jot it down now: 158FLF7365.

Type that in when you open your laptop in the clouds, and it'll get you 50% off the cost of the WiFi, which regularly starts at $5.95 and goes all the way up to $49.95 for 30 days. The code is valid until August 31, 2009, so anyone flying the following airlines soon has a little something extra to look forward to: Virgin America, Delta, United, American and AirTran.

Related Stories:
· Discount code tweet [Twitter]
· US Airways Announces They'll Have In-Flight WiFi In 2010 [Jaunted]
· Gogo In-Flight WiFi Coverage [Jaunted]

[Image: Gogo]

Tags: Travel Contests / Virgin America / Music Festivals / → All Tags

Fly to Virgin Mobile's FreeFest For Free, Of Course

We hope you were listening when we announced, at the end of last month, that the Virgin Mobile Music Festival would now be the "Virgin FreeFest," and that tickets for the now-free Baltimore-area show were up for grabs that moment.

You see, since then, all 35,000 free tickets have been gobbled up by fans hungry to bands like Weezer, Blink-182, Public Enemy, and Franz Ferdinand, and we totally don't blame them for jumping on free stuff. Still, if you're stuck on the west coast, drooling over the potential awesomeness of attending such a concert, there is now a way to make it happen thanks to the generosity of Virgin America.

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Tags: In-Flight WiFi / WiFi / Airline News / Virgin America / Aircell / Southwest Airlines / → All Tags

This Week In In-Flight WiFi: Twitter's Role and American's Free Deal

Compared to the ice age of in-flight Wifi—which was like, last year—this week has yielded a slew of positive updates on airlines' progression with outfitting their fleets and more. Before we hit the weekend and you jet away on your (hopefully) WiFi-equipped flight, let's round up the news on connectivity:

· AirTran kept their promise to outfit all of their planes with WiFi before the end of the summer, even if Virgin America beat them to it mid-way through May. To kick off fleet-wide service, they launched a series of "netiquette" videos, instructing you to not do such things as eBay auction off your seatmate's clothing or conduct business meetings with bagels in the lavatory (maybe without bagels?).

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Tags: In-Flight WiFi / WiFi / Airline News / Virgin America / Delta / AirTran / Air Canada / AirCell / → All Tags

The Scoop On WiFi In The Sky; Now With Canada

Our neighbors across the border are on their way to enjoying sweet, sweet in-flight WiFi. SkySurf Canada has been awarded a license to provide Internet access up there, as the Gogo of the north, if you will. Aircell is already looking to become friendly with them, but for now it appears as though things will be slow to start, although Air Canada does plan to offer WiFi connectivity later this year on flights from Toronto to Los Angeles.

Back at home, Delta is plugging along in equipping their planes with in-flight WiFi. They’ve made some good progress in recent weeks and have almost completed WiFi installation on 60% of their pre-merger domestic fleet. Installation on the airline’s first wide-body jet is set to take place on July 9, and the Boeing 767-300 will be testing things out on July 13. You’ll be happy to know they are hard at work on Northwest’s pre-merger fleet as final designs will be determined this month.

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Tags: Seats / In-Flight Entertainment / Virgin America / RED / → All Tags

Virgin America is Aware of Super Poking; Recommends 'Light Tapping'

The other day we griped about the "super poking" that often goes on aboard flights with touchscreen seat back TVs, like on Virgin America, where cranky grandmas are nearly banging on the RED system to order their ginger ale and crackers.

But the folks at Virgin America are aware of the situation and are going to begin informing passengers that the "light-tapping" method works the best. Here's what they told Jaunted:

In response, our crews are now including a verbal advisory in-flight which notes that light tapping works best for the Red system interface.  This is also included in our in-flight “How to use Red” guide (see attached). 

We’re definitely monitoring this and hope as people get more acclimated to the system they can see that only the gentlest touch is needed to change channels, select movies, videogames, zoom your journey on Google Maps – or any of the other activities Red offers at every seatback.

We also have qwerty keyboards and a handset remote in every armrest that offers guests full control over Red if they’d prefer not to use the touch-screen.

Did ya hear that Grams? Light-tapping works the best. We'll even come back there and show you how to do it.  

Related Stories:
· The Problem With Seat Back TVs: A Different Kind of Super Poke [Jaunted]
· 2009 In-Flight Entertainment Status Update [Jaunted]

Tags: Tweet of The Day / Twitter / Virgin America / Seat Back TVs / → All Tags

The Problem With Seat Back TVs: A Different Kind of Super Poke

If you've flown on a flight recently with those glorious seat back TVs, you might have felt some more poking and prodding on your seat back than usual. No, it's not from that little kid kicking the seat behind you. It's actually coming from that little kid who's trying to work the seat back TV behind you.

Or as a recent passenger on Virgin America recently Twittered:

@richardbranson, May want to rethink the seat-back touch screen idea on Virgin America. Nothing like 3 hours being punched in the head...

We've actually had this happen to us on a Virgin America flight last month from LAX to JFK. Except it wasn't a little kid. It was a fussy old grandmother who was so annoyed the RED system wasn't working as soon as she sat down in her seat. She then continued to punch hard on the screen before her son told her that it would work once the plane took off.

When we were in the air, the poking continued until finally Grams had some absinthe and passed out. Ok, we're joking about that last part but she did take a nap for a while. Then the poking started again. Guess you can't have everything in-flight after all, huh?

Join the travel twitter conversation, follow us here.

Related Stories:
· Outerpol [Twitter]
· 2009 Airline In-Flight Entertainment Status Update [Jaunted]

Tags: In-Flight Entertainment / Virgin America / Airline News / Shira Lazar / Travel Videos / → All Tags

The Day in the Cloud Challenge Was Um...Challenging

We were able to fly on Virgin America from LAX to SFO this morning for the airline's inaugural Day in the Cloud Challenge--the first-ever online puzzle challenge that can be played in the air and on the ground. We competed against another Virgin America flight using the GoGo in-flight WiFi (which was complimentary to all guests on VA flights today.)

GoGo's WiFi network was understandably overstressed this morning but once we were able to play the game, things did not get easier. These games are actually quite hard! And there was a very cool prize at stake. The two flights were vying to win a free netbook for everyone on the plane.

So how did it end up? Well, we were on the winning flight but we're still not sure how this game works.

Related Stories:
· 'Calling All Jeopardy Geniuses' For Virgin America's Impossible Trivia Game [Jaunted]

Tags: In-Flight WiFi / Gogo / WiFi / Delta / Virgin America / → All Tags

Gogo Goes With A Monthly In-Flight WiFi Plan, But Is It Worth It?

We love in-flight WiFi and you know we don’t try to hide it. That’s why we were stoked—if people use that word anymore—to hear that Gogo Inflight Internet is now offering a monthly pass. This is a great option for frequent fliers that are tired of shelling out $10 bucks or so every time they want to catch up on email, and it means that Gogo is going strong.

The Gogo 30-Day Pass will set you back $49.95 and is available now on Virgin America and Delta. However, your pass is only good for a single carrier, so you can’t use your monthly pass on both of the airlines. With Delta only having some of their planes equipped and no way to know if you're on one until boarding, we think Virgin America is the safer choice.

On the flip side of this move, this is just another bill we’ll have each month for Internet access. With access at home, on our phones, and now in the sky, we're doling out a lot of cash to stay connected. What do you think? Deal or no deal when it comes to Gogo’s new monthly connection plan? Let us know in the comments below.

Related Stories:
· Gogo Inflight Internet - Gogo Price [Official Site]
· First! All Virgin America Planes Are Now Equipped With In-Flight WiFi [Jaunted]
· WiFi coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Official Site]

Tags: In-Flight Entertainment / Airline News / Virgin America / Southwest Airlines / Delta / Continental / American Airlines / US AIrways / United / → All Tags

2009 Airline In-Flight Entertainment Status Update

2009 has been the year when the US Domestic air carriers have really begun to step up their in-flight entertainment systems. We are no longer in the post-WWII era where airlines can cling to an occasional projector movie during longer flights. Furthermore, the CRT drop-down world is very close to extinction as well. These days seat back LCD screens and IFEC (c is for connectivity) are all the rage and most US airlines are expanding their offerings accordingly.

Of course, younger airlines with a smaller fleet have a built-in advantage here (fewer and newer planes), but that doesn't change the increasing demand from passengers for better, more reliable IFEC options. It could even be argued that customers are more likely to accept higher ancillary fees for things like extra luggage and pets if they can kick back with a killer IFEC on the flight.

Just this weekend we heard a JetBlue customer comment to her friend at baggage claim:

We sat on the tarmac for an hour at JFK, but by the time I watched three shows I was where I needed to be -- how can you beat that?

It seems in todays world, all delays might even be close to forgiven if you can get caught up on Jon and Kate Plus Eight while you wait.

Click here for our 2009 IFEC Chart and see how the airlines stack up against each other.

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Tags: Virgin America / In-Flight WiFi / Travel Contests / Airline News / → All Tags

'Calling All Jeopardy Geniuses' For Virgin America's Impossible Trivia Game

A week ago, we reported on on the upcoming online "scavenger" challenger that is Virgin America's "Day In the Cloud." At the time, it seemed like an excuse to play word games and stretch our mental muscles during the workday while competing for prizes, but we were wrong—it is gruelingly taxing on the brain.

Yesterday brought the first practice game to prepare us for the big day on June 24, but its difficulty combined with their boring and unhelpful video series has turned us off. Beware in-flight critical thinking...

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Tags: Virgin America / In-Flight WiFi / Travel Contests / Airline News / → All Tags

A Year Of Free Virgin America Flights From Solving Puzzles? We're In.

Remember crossword puzzles? Those delightful little grids of trivia fun that both validated your esoteric knowledge and made flight time pass quickly? Thanks to the ubiquity of ipods, Kindles and in-flight WiFi, poor puzzles have withered into being an old man's Sunday afternoon activity. But they're back! Kind of!

On Wednesday June 24, the Wifi-enabled fleet of Virgin America's planes invite their passengers and those on the ground to whip out their critical thinking and put the credit cards away for a day of free puzzle challenges. It's being called the "Day In the Cloud," and although details are still fuzzy on exactly what sort of games we'll be playing, they assure us that practice tasks will be shared beforehand.

As for the prizes for top scorers, they're pretty sweet: things like a new HP netbook, 1 terabyte of Google Account storage, and a year of flying free on VA with complimentary WiFi. According to them, playing along will be simple as all you'll need is "a net connection, a Google Account, and the warm, comforting glow of your computer screen." Since we've long been devotees of good old in-flight puzzles, you know we're game. Sign up now at their website.

Related Stories:
· Day In the Cloud [Virgin America]
· Solving Puzzles 35,000 Feet Above Ground [PSFK]
· Virgin America Coverage [Jaunted]

[Image: Virgin America]

Tags: Virgin / Airline News / Virgin America / V Australia / → All Tags

Virgin America and V Australia Team Up For Sexy, Seamless Transpacific Travel

How much do you love Richard Branson? As if his LCC Virgin America isn't awesome enough for introducing mood lighting and fleet-wide WiFi to the US skies, now his Aussie outfit of V Australia will join with VA to offer seamless cross-Pacific travel between the two airlines.

Via an interline agreement between the carriers which goes into effect this week, passengers can now book a single ticket on V Australia's website for travel on both airlines from Australia into the US and beyond. Not to mention that trips through LAX mean enjoying the awesomeness of Virgin's Terminal 3— think mood lighting both inside and curbside, destination weather information displayed next to flight details, Eames sling chairs, and check-in counters more like concierge desks.

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