Welcome on board the very first passenger flight for JetBlue Mint, their new business class product. With flat-bed seats, premium meals and even four mini-suites on board this is very, very much not the JetBlue of 15 years ago.
in flight
JetBlue extending free Fly-Fi trial
Free wifi is good; on a plane is even better. And JetBlue’s FlyFi is the fastest service flying in the skies today which makes it pretty compelling. Of course, it is still free because it is a beta product which isn’t perfect. But still a nice price point.
Still the best in-flight internet. When it connects.
The Fly-Fi in-flight internet product from JetBlue (same hardware as United’s 737s, too) remains the best connectivity solution I’ve ever used on a plane. Alas, there are still reliability issues. It is spectacular when it works, though.
In-flight: Taking the Southwest/Row44 wifi for a ride
With more than 500 planes fitted with the Row44 in-flight internet kit a flight on Southwest these days is quite likely to mean an opportunity to be online while in the air. With my most recent work trip including a segment on Southwest that also meant an opportunity for me to try out the satellite-based […]
JetBlue A321s now certified for FlyFi, LiveTV
Be on the lookout for Fly-Fi internet service and in-seat TVs on JetBlue‘s A321 planes coming soon. The carrier is expected to announce later this afternoon announced Thursday that they have received certification from the FAA to install the hardware on their newest aircraft type. This will allow the carrier to retrofit the first few A321s […]
AT&T plans in-flight internet service
Want faster in-flight internet? AT&T may be the solution to your needs as the carrier announced this week plans to have 4G/LTE-based systems on board aircraft by the end of 2015. The company will, in essence, leverage their massive ground-based coverage footprint and bandwidth capacity to serve up connectivity in the sky. Additional antennae will […]
What if we could track all the planes in the sky for free??
Back when MH370 went missing I shared my (somewhat unpopular) view that tracking all planes all the time was probably not worth the cost, certainly not for full “black box” dumps. I do understand that the cost for very simple position/speed data would be much less expensive to transmit and process, but there’s still a […]
Two bumps, one hump: Gogo’s 2Ku aims for fastest global connectivity solution
Evolution in the global in-flight wifi market took another step forward this week with Gogo‘s 2Ku platform. Based on similar technology as the GTO system announced last September, the Gogo 2Ku system promises download speeds up to 70Mbit on the plane using the super-thin antenna from Thinkom. Gogo expects to have the system in trials […]
A few interesting year-end numbers from Gogo
Gogo released their year-end numbers this week and with them their annual 10-K SEC filing. While I find most of the content of those filings pretty boring I also usually seem to find one or two nuggets of interesting news in there. This time around that interesting bit comes in the form of some details […]
LiveTV sold to Thales: A shift in the IFEC market
The old adage “content is king” may be shifting slightly. In the in-flight entertainment market increasingly “connectivity is king.” For the providers of the IFE systems having a strong connectivity component to their offerings is key to growing their business or even just maintaining the existing customer base. In-flight entertainment and connectivity vendor Thales made […]