The march towards in-flight connectivity continues on at an ever faster pace. Last week JetBlue started testing their BetaBlue service, which for the time being gives its passengers access to Yahoo! Mail or corporate email via a wifi enabled Blackberry. Air France meanwhile is moving forward with their own set of tests, involving the use of cell phones (mobile phones for you European folk). Hold your horses, before you stop flying them completely, you should know this is only a test…for now.
Air France has outfitted one of their A318s with equipment that basically lets cell phones do anything in the air they can do on the ground. For the first three months of operation only data transmission will be enabled – ie text messages and Internet over the regular cell phone network. After that however voice calls will be allowed while passengers reactions are recorded via surveys at the end of every flight. Based on the results of that survey, Air France will then decide if this service should be limited to data use but no voice calls, and whether or not they will expand the service to their entire fleet.
European low cost carrier Ryanair also plans to allow mobile phone use in-flight. They are forgoing the whole “lets see how customers like it” phase and equipping all 150 aircraft in the fleet with tiny mobile phone stations. They claim customers wont mind the distractions on the shorter, busy routes Ryanair flies. I’m sure the fact that Ryanair gets a cut of the sky high (oh that was a good pun) international roaming rates customers will be charged when they use the service has nothing to do with it either.
Other airlines are getting in on the testing action as well. Qantas has been quietly testing their own in-flight data service for cellphones on a 767; with over 19,000 passengers having used the service to date. They have no plans to add voice service, but might consider going fleet wide with data service. Emirates is also equipping its entire fleet with the technology, forgoing the testing period. I think this is probably because of their desperation to have the latest and great of everything in the airline industry and less because it may actually be useful to passengers.
All the services being tested by airlines will work in the middle of the ocean, an upgrade over previous versions, because they connect via satellite, rather than via ground towers. Luckily for those of us flying in the United States, we won’t have to worry about the person next to us yelling for five hours across the country any time soon. The FTC decided earlier this year there would be no use of cellphones in flight, and we all know how fast out wonderful government can change their mind once they’ve come up with a position.
A visibly very disturbed passenger on a flight from London to Toronto (on board Air Canada) was caught in this YouTube post from a December 6th flight. He is being restrained by two men on either side of him, but I can’t tell if they are inflight crew or just passenger unfortunate enough to be sitting next to him. They do have him handcuffed though. I wonder how long passengers had to endure this stressful stuff before he was finally subdued?
The NYTimes blog DealBook is reporting that Lufthansa is in talks to buy a 20% stake in JetBlue Airways. I for one never expected JetBlue to be open to a sale, even for a portion of the company, to any airline, but it looks as if I’ve been proven wrong. An official announcement on the deal could be made as soon as the market closes on Thursday in New York.
JetBlue’s stock, which has been in the dumps as of late, was up as much as 35% on the news of the potential deal to almost $8.50. Why make this bid now? DealBook indicated it was because of the relative strength of the Euro against the Dollar, making the deal cheaper than ever before for Lufthansa. All of this still remains a rumor until an official announcement, but it seems quite possibly real to me.
Because Lufthansa is only taking a 20% stake in the company, they stay way below the foreign-ownership requirements for US airlines, something Virgin America has to battle when they started operations earlier this year. According to people familiar with the matter the investment would only be a passive one, but would not rule out some kind of partnership (read:code sharing agreement) in the future.
UPDATE: The AP has confirmed this story. Lufthansa actually purchased a 19% stake in JetBlue for $300 million. This is based on a share price of $7.27 per share, or a 16% premium of JetBlue’s closing price Wednesday. Even more important, the two airlines said they would seek “an operation cooperation.” What this means was not elaborated upon, but more details will be forthcoming.
The US is definitely behind the curve in this area, as several airline in Canada already let passengers check in using their cellphone. And lets not even talk about how far ahead Asia is in the cell phone department. Still, progress marches on, and the video below demonstrates testing currently going on that would allow passengers to use their cellphone to board a plane. The technology seems very convenient, but I’m wondering how long it would be before someone enterprising hacker figures out the algorithm and can generate boarding passes at will.
Virgin America continued its growth today with the announcement of new service to Seattle, WA (SEA) from its dual West coast focus cities of San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX). Service from SFO starts March 18th, with follow on service from Los Angeles starting April 8th, 2008. Fares on the route seem to be very competitve with flight between SFO and SEA starting at $77, and flights between LAX and SEA going from $99. Even better, First Class seats on the two routes start at $177 and $199 each way, respectively. For a three hour flight from LAX to SEA that is not too shabby a deal at all.
Sadly, this service starts after both of Virgin America’s promotion codes expire, so you will have pony up the full retail price in order to get on board. I’m sure VA will come up with something new to give away before then though, and when they do I’ll be sure to let you know.
Boeing, speaking at their quarterly 787 program update, said today they see no further delays in production of the brand new 787 Dreamliner. A few months ago they informed the world that, like competitor Airbus, their new major model of aircraft would face a delay in delivery. So far that delay has only been six months, as opposed to Airbus’ two year delay, but the production schedule is still extremely tight. Many analysts expect Boeing to announce further delays, but so far executives are sticking to the revised schedule.
As things currently stand Boeing expects the first flight of the 787 to take place some time in the first quarter of next yea, with the first delivery model going to All Nippon Airways by the end of next year. All in all in 2008 Boeing still expects to produce 40 Dreamliners, with 109 rolling off production lines in 2009. Currently Boeing has a staggering 762 orders from 52 customers, which effectively means the plane is sold out through 2014. Now I just can’t wait to fly on this thing!
Engadget just took JetBlue Airways’ debut flight of BetaBlue, their free inflight wifi service, and has posted an in-depth look of their experience. So far their story makes it seem like BetaBlue has a way to go before it becomes a truly useful service (unless you operate on Yahoo), but is a good first start. Airline Fanatic wrote about this flight when JetBlue announced BetaBlue last week.
The march towards in-flight connectivity continues on at an ever faster pace. Last week JetBlue started testing their BetaBlue service, which for the time being gives its passengers access to Yahoo! Mail or corporate email via a wifi enabled Blackberry. Air France meanwhile is moving forward with their own set of tests, involving the use of cell phones (mobile phones for you European folk). Hold your horses, before you stop flying them completely, you should know this is only a test…for now.
Air France has outfitted one of their A318s with equipment that basically lets cell phones do anything in the air they can do on the ground. For the first three months of operation only data transmission will be enabled – ie text messages and Internet over the regular cell phone network. After that however voice calls will be allowed while passengers reactions are recorded via surveys at the end of every flight. Based on the results of that survey, Air France will then decide if this service should be limited to data use but no voice calls, and whether or not they will expand the service to their entire fleet.
The NYTimes blog DealBook is reporting that 
Virgin America
months, as opposed to Airbus’ two year delay, but the production schedule is still extremely tight. Many analysts expect Boeing to announce further delays, but so far executives are sticking to the revised schedule.