Unlike the inflight wireless systems that airlines are running in the US, Lufthansa’s FlyNet, powered by Panasonic, will use a satellite-based network, which means that you can get a signal over the oceans. And if you’re looking for a way to pass the time on a long flight, I think internet access is a pretty good way to do it. (Yes, I know, it can tether you to the office, too, which means you’re never off the clock. It’s a tradeoff.)

How about price? Too soon to ask for specifics, but I like that mileage redemption is an option:

Various different price models are planned – ranging from a rate by the hour to a monthly flat rate. Passengers should also be able to redeem Miles & More award miles for the use of WLAN Internet connections. The exact price for specific products will be announced at a later date.

I like the mileage redemption option, and it will be interesting to see how creative they get with pricing. A recent study by Alaska Airlines showed that customers are extremely price sensitive when it comes to internet access (at least on domestic US flights). One domestic provider, Row 44, has hinted at the possibility of inflight service subsidized by advertising. Who knows, perhaps Lufthansa will consider ads to reduce the cost to passengers as well.

I’m on an American Airlines MD-80, which happens to have Gogo wireless access. (I saved $9.95 by using code AAWiFi76194A1, valid thru August 23. You can use it too.)

Here’s my current location, for those keeping score:

The speed is impressive:

In any case, it’s time to put this sucker to the test and see if streaming video can work. More reports when I’m back on terra firma.

Upgraded: British Airways
Downgraded: “cheaper” airlines
A (non-scientific) study by the Times of London found that fares were lower on British Airways than on Ryanair. And that was before they took things like luggage fees and check-in fees into account. This just reinforces the importance of price comparison (which Ryanair and its ilk tend to make difficult by keeping their fares out of the global distribution systems). As I’ve always argued, don’t assume that a “low-cost” airline is automatically lower than others. (Thanks to reader J!)

Upgraded: Skycaps
A court has affirmed that American Airlines harmed Boston skycaps’ tip income when it imposed a $2 curbside check-in fee — which went to the airline, not the skycaps. (The $2 fee was dropped in May 2008, when American started charging a fee for all checked bags.)

Upgraded: Inflight wi-fi
In the last few weeks, Virgin America reduced the cost of its inflight wifi. Lufthansa hinted at relaunching global satellite-based wifi using Panasonic’s technology (essentially duplicating the service it once offered via Connexion by Boeing). And another satellite provider, Row 44, which has tested service on Southwest and Alaska Airlines, received approval from the FCC to offer its services.

Downgraded: Continental Express
Another “trapped passengers” story… Continental Express flight gets diverted, keeps passengers on board for NINE HOURS. I mean, really, nine hours? On a regional jet?? There is no excuse for that duration of delay without allowing passengers to disembark. None. I don’t believe that this is the number one problem facing passengers today, but stories like this make it clear that some time limits to passenger trappings do need to be part of any passenger rights bill.

Downgraded: Some of the best premium seats in the sky
Cathay Pacific, which offers one of the best premium class products in the air, is cutting back the number of first and business class seats.

Downgraded: Bangkok airport duty-free
If you’re in Bangkok, you might want to skip the duty-free shop. Customers have been falsely accused (better: framed) of shoplifting. And thanks to an apparently collusive agreement between the police, the duty free operator (King Power), and individual “translators,” all working in cahoots, travelers have been forced to pay up thousands of dollars in order to leave the country. “The British Embassy has also warned passengers at Bangkok Airport to take care not to move items around in the duty free shopping area before paying for them, as this could result in arrest and imprisonment.” Absurd! Read the whole convoluted story of the “zig zag scam” here.

Downgraded: OpenSkies
British Airways is looking to sell its all-business class OpenSkies subsidiary, only a year after buying L’Avion and merging the two operations. The airline-in-an-airline is still operating, though, and there are some pretty sweet deals for premium class travel. If you’re flying between New York and Amsterdam or Paris anytime soon and looking for a relatively inexpensive upgrade, this could be the ticket. (~$1230 all-in roundtrip for a 140° cradle seat, or ~$2100 for a 180° flat bed.) But I wouldn’t book more than a month or two out.

Upgraded: Inflight internet overseas
Lufthansa is reportedly exploring ways of restarting the now-defunct Boeing Connexion satellite-powered inflight internet service. The receivers are already installed on many of their planes (a process which was undertaken at a hefty cost. Panasonic is the most likely provider of the services to the airline.

Downgraded: The St. Regis Monarch Beach
Upgraded: Irony
You may recall the St. Regis Monarch Beach in California as the site of controversy — Weeks after accepting a huge federal bailout, AIG executives spent nearly half a million smackers to host a swank affair at the resort. Now the resort itself has gone into receivership: Creditor Citigroup has foreclosed on the property, taking possession from the franchisees, Makar Properties. (Perhaps not surprising if reports of 15% occupancy rates are true.) But foreclosure doesn’t mean closure. The property remains open, albeit under new ownership.

Upgraded: Exotic inflight vermin
Paging Samuel L. Jackson! A passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight departing Phoenix was stung by a scorpion in flight. The creature fell out of luggage in the overhead bin, where numerous other scorpions were residing.

Downgraded: Budget Rent-a-Car’s ethics
Budget Rent-a-Car is still working with Trilegiant, the shady operators who send out “checks” you shouldn’t endorse. Signing the back commits you to an expensive membership in a “consumer club” with minimal benefits — all billed to the credit card you used when you rented a car from Budget. I reported on this back in January. I just received a similar solicitation this week, offering me a $10 check in exchange for a $219.98/year membership in “HealthSaver.” Shame on you, Budget, for pimping out the credit card data that your customers trusted you with.

Downgraded: Airline fees
Another week, another hike of airline fees. Continental, as part of its earnings report, is raising the cost of checked luggage by $5, bringing it to $20 for the first bag and $30 for the second. Also: Delta is adding a $5 in-person luggage fee for bags not checked in in advance online.

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The workaround is an application called Phweet, which lets you make voice calls to friends who are linked to you on Twitter. Andy Abramson posts the details on his VoIP Watch blog, in which he describes a successful test of the workaround on an American Airlines flight:

I invited Joanna, she replied and once I figured out how to get Phweet to answer (I had to use Safari, not Firefox) Joanna and I were having a lovely conversation while she was on an Aircell flight. I don’t mean a five second hi, hello. I mean, a real conversation, as she held her Lenovo UMPC up to her face. I even heard the announcement from the flight attendants as she was about to land.

Here’s the logic. Flash audio is embedded inside Flash. Unless Aircell wants to block all Flash traffic, this is the way to talk.

Inevitably, other Flash-based systems will emerge, so phone calls won’t be limited to Twitter users.

Enforcing a “no calls” policy will now fall on the shoulders of the flight attendants. I don’t think the odds are good that they’ll be able to maintain that order for long.

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I’m all for inflight wi-fi. Granted, I have an internet addiction and giving me inflight wi-fi is like handing a bottle of Jim Beam to an alcoholic. But I’ll feed the need for the time being and praise Delta’s recent announcement that they’d be rolling out inflight wi-fi across their domestic fleet.

Delta is joining with Aircell®, a 17-year leader in airborne communications for business and commercial aviation, to install the company’s Mobile Broadband Network on the carrier’s domestic fleet. The system, Gogo™, will enable Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, to access the Internet, corporate VPNs, corporate and personal e-mail accounts, as well as SMS texting and instant messaging services. Gogo will be available to customers for a flat fee of $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours.

Sounds good to me. And according to the Gogo site, and confirmed by Scott McCartney, voice calls, such as Skype, will be blocked. I like.

But there are two caveats:

1) Power. No inflight internet is worthwhile if you run out of juice. Will Delta be installing power ports on every flight? Unlike, say, Virgin America, Delta doesn’t have power at every seat. And their announcement doesn’t suggest they’ll be installing it. While installing wifi can be done overnight, adding power takes a lot more effort, time, and weight. In the meantime: Buy a spare battery.

2) Space. If you’re going to open up a laptop, you need room. If someone pushes their seat back, your screen can get jammed into place in the laptop squeeze. Either you’ll need to negotiate with the person in front of you, to prevent them from reclining, or airlines need to add seat pitch to each row. Good luck with the latter.

All in all, I’m happy to hear that Delta is rolling this out, and doing it so aggressively. I’d love to see power, too, but I’m not optimistic. By the end of 2008, 75 planes (starting with MD-88s) will be slated for the upgrade. By the end of 2009, 300 planes should have it. That’s much faster than the JetBlue or American beta-tests.

Related:
- Inflight internet update: Southwest blocks Skype, Continental (hearts) Blackberry
- Feed the Internet addiction: American Airlines will roll out high-speed inflight wi-fi next year
- It’s official: Boeing pulling the plug on its inflight internet service, Connexion

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First it was Boeing’s failed Connexion service (R.I.P.). But in recent months, inflight internet is making a comeback. There was JetBlue’s announcement of a Yahoo/Blackberry inflight internet service. Then last week, Southwest announced that they would be rolling out wi-fi internet access onboard a limited number of their planes in coming months. Then, this week, Continental followed suit with a JetBlue style TV and limited internet service. The similarity to JetBlue’s product isn’t coincidental: They’re buying the service from a JetBlue subsidiary.

The Southwest internet announcement was more interesting, because it was real internet, and not limited to Yahoo or Blackberry. Still, I had some questions. Today, I’ve got some answers from the heart of Southwest HQ.

The biggest deal: No voice. Not even Voice-over-IP. Just try and use your Skype connection. I dare you. Double-dog dare you. Southwest has got you blocked, sucka.

Q: Will passengers know in advance which routes will have the wi-fi capability?
A: Maybe. Noncommittal. “Nothing is concrete yet.”

Q: Will voice features, e.g., the portal for Skype, be turned on, or off?
A: OFF. Southwest will be blocking VoIP. “We’ll have more than enough bandwidth to support e-mail and IM…great SILENT communication options!”

Q: Any plans to consider cellphone capability?
A: Not at this time. (Whew!)

Q: Any plans to bundle wi-fi with the “business” fares now offered?
A: No word yet on the pricing. TBA.

Related:
- JetBlue starts testing inflight internet next week
- Feed the Internet addiction: American Airlines will roll out high-speed inflight wi-fi next year
- It’s official: Boeing pulling the plug on its inflight internet service, Connexion
- “No Cellphones” light to be added to aircraft interiors

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Upgraded: Inflight internet on Southwest
I’m convinced 2009 will be the year inflight internet really takes off, but 2008 is the year of inflight internet rollouts. Next to announce: Southwest! Partnering with Row 44, the airline plans to roll out inflight wi-fi — including VPN access, which is a plus for those hoping to hook up to the company network — in four planes this summer. So how about power outlets? Which leads us to…

Downgraded: London Heathrow Terminal 5
New terminal? Great! But the new facility has no power outlets for public use! What were they thinking? Clearly not designed with travelers in mind.

Downgraded: Non-EU residents on Ryanair
European zero-frills powerhouse Ryanair charges extra fees if you don’t check in online. But they don’t permit non-EU and non-EEA passport-holders to check in online. That’s most everyone in the world who’s getting a surtax. Oh sure, you can apply for a refund, but the burden is on you, the traveler. Lovely, as always, Ryanair. See here for the scoop.

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Hotspots at 39,000 feet? They’re back!

On Tuesday, JetBlue Airways will begin offering a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one aircraft, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer a broader Web experience in the coming months, probably priced at about $10 a flight.

“I think 2008 is the year when we will finally start to see in-flight Internet access become available, but I suspect the rollout domestically will take place in a very measured way,” said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with Forrester Research. But “in a few years time, if you get on a flight that doesn’t have Internet access, it will be like walking into a hotel room that doesn’t have TV.”

Granted, it’s just one aircraft for starters, but you gotta start somewhere.

But… it’s not going to be a full-fledged internet quite yet.:

Live TV, the JetBlue unit that operates the system, is rolling it out in partnership with Yahoo and Blackberry maker Research In Motion. Users can send and receive e-mail from any type of account on two models of Blackberry, 8820 and 8320. Laptop users are limited to using only Yahoo e-mail and Yahoo’s instant messaging application. The companies haven’t signed exclusive deals, and JetBlue may opt to include other popular web-based e-mail accounts in the future, such as Hotmail or Gmail.

$10 for e-mail and IM’ing only? No web access? No VPN? Well, that’s a little less appealing for me and my laptop. Good for the Blackberry users, but no inflight live-blogging action, then. Until it’s real web access, I’ll probably let it go.

Related:
- Feed the Internet addiction: American Airlines will roll out high-speed inflight wi-fi next year
- It’s official: Boeing pulling the plug on its inflight internet service, Connexion
- “No Cellphones” light to be added to aircraft interiors

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Great, right? Well… there’s a catch. Skype is on the list of planned features. Hell is your seatmate shouting, “Guess where I am! No, guess! I’m on a plane!” Screaming madmen yelling at jilted lovers in faraway places could soon be sitting right next to you, laptops open, vocal cords ablaze. Bring the earplugs!

Upgraded: Singapore Airlines reveals its surprisingly spacious A380 layout
The Airbus A380, when packed to the gills with nothing but economy seats, could carry as many as 853 people. The normal three-class provision is estimated at 555 seats. But Singapore’s layout will only feature 471 seats, thanks largely to a boatload of extra-wide business class seats, much like the ones pictured here. To get a glimpse of the seatmap, Click here. Note that the economy class seats on the lower level are configured 3-4-3 and the upper level has them at 2-4-2.

Upgraded: The UK’s Travelodge
Downgraded: Home
An elderly British couple has been living in a Travelodge motel room for over twenty years. Talk about extended stay! Travelodge in the UK is not the same company as in the US. I’ve never stayed in the UK variant, but for their sake, I hope it’s better than the stateside chain. (via BoingBoing)

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Internet addicts, take heart: American Airlines says it will be the first U.S. airline to bring inflight internet access to domestic skies.

The airline said Wednesday that it will test the service next year on some Boeing 767-200 jets that mostly fly transcontinental routes.

American will charge a fee for the hookup but said it did not know how much that would be.

American, a unit of AMR Corp., said it signed a memorandum of intent with AirCell LLC to provide the service.

AirCell will build cellular towers throughout the continental United States to transmit the signals. Planes will have three antennas, two on the bottom and one on top.

Notice that there’s a whole lot of future tense in there. “Next year.” “Will build towers.” Where’s the beef?

We’ve been hearing about the buildout of AirCell for well over a year now, and it hits the news about once per quarter. (Scott McCartney’s last piece on it was on April 3 of this year, if you’re keeping track.)

Boeing tried its hand at a satellite-based system, Connexion, but that folded. Maybe AirCell will do better: Inflight internet would be nice on longer domestic flights, and I’m happy to see an American commit to it. But I’ll believe it when I see it.

Thanks to reader Paul, who quips: “No word yet on whether they’re forcing AirCell to change their name to ‘AAirCell.’” (ThAAnks PAAul!) Sorry.

Related:
- Inflight internet moves closer to reality in American airspace
- “No Cellphones” light to be added to aircraft interiors
- It’s official: Boeing pulling the plug on its inflight internet service, Connexion

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Your newspaper smells delicious, did you stay at an Omni?
Hotels’ “scent programs” and aromatherapy trends may have just jumped the shark. In a cross-promotional marketers’ fantasy come true, Omni Hotels have started slapping berry-scented stickers advertising Starbucks muffins on copies of USA Today. And the Wall Street Journal is considering adding scents to their advertising pages. Hopefully these odors won’t interfere with the whiff of lemongrass and green tea that’s being pumped into lobby spaces at the chain. What’s next, pay-per-view Smellovision?

Predict the next threat? A TSA-inspired contest
Bruce Schneier is running a contest to conceive of an absurd, fictional terrorist plot that would cause the TSA to start banning yet another product from airports. The more ludicrous the product, yet oddly plausible the threat, the better. Why? “The purpose of this contest is absurd humor, but I hope it also makes a point. Terrorism is a real threat, but we’re not any safer through security measures that require us to correctly guess what the terrorists are going to do next.” Partially-digested food, tooth-fillings, and zippers are front-runners in my book.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car buys Alamo and National
Enterprise is buying Vanguard Car Rental, the parent company of Alamo and National. The combined company would have over a million cars on its lots. Will rentals at Enterprise become more automated, like at Alamo/National? Will Alamo/National start doing the long walkarounds, hard-sells on CDWs, and secretly-negotiable rates?

Wi-fly
After the shutdown of Boeing’s Connexion satellite-based inflight internet service, other companies have been slow to start up service, which was promised nearly a year ago. Scott McCartney checks in with possible providers, and we’re still not there. But it’s coming “early next year.” And rest assured, Skype calls won’t go through. They’ll be blocked, so your fears of cellphone conversations can be kept at bay. Onboard wi-fi — which is already approved for service by both the FCC and FAA — will cost around $10 per day, and packages that link with existing services like T-Mobile HotSpot, Boingo, and iPass will be available. No word on which airlines will be the first to bite.

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