Gogo tower in remote Nevada location
Wired frequent flyers living in Atlanta are lucky– both Delta and AirTran are industry leaders when it comes to having inflight wi-fi available on planes. It’s a rare occasion that an Atlantan jumps on jet at ATL that doesn’t have the service. That’s not the case for the poor souls in other airline hubs where getting inflight wi-fi is a hit or miss proposition.
But the situation is getting better nationally.
For example, Southwest now has wi-fi on 75% of its fleet. United says that it should have 300 wi-fi equipped aircraft by the end of this year. JetBlue is talking about adding a newer, faster version of satellite based wi-fi and offering it for free to all passengers. Delta is adding wi-fi to its international fleet.
This week Gogo, the major purveyor of inflight wi-fi produced some interesting numbers around how we use their service– see below for an interesting infographic.
RELATED: Gogo to upgrade inflight wi-fi capacity.
From Gogo:
When it comes to staying connected at 36,000 feet, tablets and smartphones now make up a whopping 67% of the devices being used to connect to Gogo. Tablets are the most preferred device at 35%, followed closely by laptops (33%) and smartphones (32%).
Apple devices are still reigning above the clouds, following the tablet trend with the iPad being the device of choice. Among all mobile devices being used to connect through Gogo, 84 percent carry Apple’s iOS operating system while 16 percent carry the Android operating system. If you look only at the smartphones our customers are using, the iPhone makes up 73 percent and all Android devices make up 26 percent, with Blackberry and Windows based devices each making up less than 1 percent of devices being used in air.
So, what are our passengers doing once they connect at 30,000 feet? It’s no surprise that general Web surfing ranked as the number one in air, online activity users want to do. Besides Web surfing, passengers spend their time in flight accessing personal email, engaging in social media, checking sports scores and shopping. Business travelers ranked accessing their work email and finalizing reports as the most frequent activity above the clouds. Passengers also utilize Gogo to explore their final destination’s weather, entertainment options and directions upon their arrival.
Marc or Sneaky, I would like to share in one of your plans, if you still have room…
Hey Marc. Don’t use your last name. Sharing gogo is against TOS. Hopefully the account was not in your name. You can bet they are looking you up. Hopefully Chris will edit your name out of there. If they turn you off then you will have to have one of the other 6 people sign up. I belong to a group of 50 who share 3 unlimited accounts. We use Google calendar as a group to block off the flight time. That way only one person logs in at a time per account while airborne. I pay $36 a year and always get a time slot. On board, I connect with my android and re-share the connection via WiFi with my laptop and the kids tablets. Well worth the price. FYI, I fly one trip, 4 segments, per month. I save $358.44 per year!!
Why not do a story on the popularity of Delta’s new $6 live TV charge? I just finished a SEA-ATL flight-I changed flights on purpose to be on a flight that had the TVs and found out that they’re charging $6 to watch network TV. I don’t mind paying a premium for movie channels, but network TV sounds like a bizarre thing to charge for…curious what others think.
Hey Evan: You should have no problems when relying on an iPhone 5 in those areas, esp if w AT&T GSM coverage. Many ships have ship-to-shore radios for emergencies, plus most now offer some kind of satellite based wi-fi onboard– pricey, but you can stay in touch that way. Have a great trip! Sounds amazing! — chris
Chris,
I’m leaving from Singapore on about a 2 week cruise sailing past Phuket, S.India and ending in Dubai.
My wife has an I phone5 which I think is a 4G phone.
My patients are very nervous as are my kids since we’ve never been gone so long–any thoughts pro or con on satellite phones vs. trusting AT&T?
Thanks,
Evan
Hey Clinton: Yes, this year Delta has started to outfit its international fleet with satellite based Wi-fi, so eventually those domestic legs will have wifi. — chris
Interestingly enough, the past three flights I’ve taken from California (LA & SF) to ATL have not had wi-fi since they were large planes normally used for international routes. I wonder if there are any plans to outfit those planes for when they’re being used within the US.
Hey Marc: Is sharing Gogo accounts okay under their TOS? I bet not!
Hey Trisha: Summer fare sales usually come out the week or two after Easter so sit tight. If you travel before roughly June 15, fare sales are usually pretty good. If your trip is after that, during peak season to Europe, fares are pretty cruel– $1500 would be about right–it you see anything less than that I would jump on it. I’ve seen ATL-LHR closer to $2000 for peak season.
I am planning a trip to England in late June, returning in mid-July. Airfares are close to $1500 RT, the highest I’ve ever seen for ATL-LHR. Do you have any further info on when to book or if there may be a price reduction?
Anybody want to share my Gogo Wi-Fi account? I’m currently sharing with six other people, we need one more person to bring it down to five dollars and change per person. They keep raising their price, and I only fly about five days a month.