Lots of drama in the crazy world of in-flight connectivity this week, including a lawsuit filed by American Airlines against Gogo seeking to terminate a contract on 200ish airplanes. Things are getting very interesting.
IFEC
Celebrating Five Years of Free Wifi on Norwegian
What does five years of free wifi look like for Norwegian? I’m somewhat surprised how low consumption and take rate are, though free sure is nice.
JetBlue Growing Mint, Seats, IFE and More
New seats, a new entertainment system, new galleys, more wifi and even a mild STFU to a Wall Street analyst. Yup, just another quarter on the JetBlue earnings call.
Chasing the Megabits: On the First JetBlue E190 with FlyFi
Just another 4:30am alarm clock, set to go make and adventure in air world. This time it was chasing down the first FlyFi wifi flight on JetBlue’s E90 fleet. And it was awesome, even with the early start.
Lufthansa’s New Connectivity Play: Many Questions Remain
Lufthansa announced plans to fit its narrow-body fleet with wifi starting in 2016. The announcement was not unexpected but it leaves some questions behind, including about the timing and reasoning for the stop-gap interim solution being used along the way.
Delta invests in China Eastern
Delta’s sphere of influence over other global airlines continues to grow. The latest move is a 3.55% stake in China Eastern. It provides Delta a leg up towards future joint venture operations, should Open Skies come to pass but is not without some interesting quirks.
JetBlue & MLB: Play Ball
With tons of bandwidth available through its satellite wifi connection JetBlue is upping the content library, adding MLB.tv live streaming on all its flights.
Friday Flyday: Chasing the Sunset Across America
It was a bit of a mess to get started thanks to PANYNJ and the JFK AirTrain. But we made the flight and it was a spectacular one. I love chasing the sun west across the globe. We caught up just in time.
Getting Giddy about Gogo GTO
Gogo took a big step towards introducing its new high-speed GTO and 2Ku satellite services this week. Passengers will (relatively) soon see a big jump in the bandwidth available on board.
More delays for Inmarsat GX in-flight internet
The high speed Inmarsat GX data network was dealt another blow this weekend as a launch failure in Kazakhstan leaves the company with much uncertainty over putting the third satellite of its constellation into place. And as it works to figure out what’s next many airline customers are, no doubt, wondering the same thing.