US airlines ready to offer digital use aloft
JetBlue to test e-mail, text messaging service
At a time when airlines have cut back on meals and just about everything else, US carriers are about to launch a new era that at long last will allow passengers to send e-mails and instant messages and connect to the Web.
The in-flight digital revolution begins Tuesday on a plane that JetBlue Airways has equipped with free WiFi access, allowing passengers to send e-mails and instant messages via their laptops or BlackBerrys.
JetBlue is the first US carrier to offer the service, but industry giant American Airlines, trendsetter Virgin America, and Alaska Airlines have said they plan to take in-flight communication a step further by offering Internet access in 2008.
"If it works good," David Neeleman, JetBlue's founder and chairman, said, "we'll roll it out to our whole fleet."
JetBlue's WiFi test run is part of an industrywide dash to attract passengers and build customer loyalty with high-tech amenities. Virgin already offers seat-to-seat text messaging, and United Airlines' seatback LCD screens play shows from digital entertainment servers on international flights.
But US carriers are lagging their international competitors. Abroad, Emirates and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. already offer in-flight e-mail and instant messaging services.
Several legacy airlines had hoped to offer passengers onboard e-mail access years ago. For instance, American, United Airlines, and Delta Air Lines invested in an in-flight high-speed broadband service, but pulled out after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Henry Harteveldt, Forrester Research Inc.'s principal airline analyst.
Outside the United States, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS, and All Nippon Airways had installed the service called Connexion by Boeing, but the aircraft manufacturer in August 2006 decided to shut the service down.
The airborne WiFi dream has been revived with the entrance of start-up carriers like JetBlue and Virgin, which ordered their new fleets with tech-savvy customers in mind, and the Federal Communications Commission's recent auction of air-to-ground communication links, Harteveldt said.
JetBlue's service will be offered on select coast-to-coast flights - including between Boston and San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle.
JetBlue passengers using wireless-enabled laptops or WiFi-enabled BlackBerry smartphones will be able to send and receive e-mails and instant messages through their free Yahoo accounts or their BlackBerry service. The service will be offered on one plane, an Airbus A320 aircraft that JetBlue has retrofitted with WiFi access points - dubbed BetaBlue. It will fly five times a day, mostly on transcontinental routes, the airline's executives said.
While JetBlue's service will enable passengers to stay better connected to the world below, it won't allow them to make calls on their smartphones. Wireless technology and cellular technology use different frequencies, and the Federal Aviation Administration has signed off only on JetBlue's WiFi offering, which the carrier tested extensively to prove it won't interfere with the flight controls or navigational equipment.
JetBlue's service, which will begin Tuesday on an 8 a.m. flight from New York to San Francisco, probably will be a welcome perk. According to a survey of 1,077 passengers that Forrester conducted in the third quarter, 5 percent of leisure travelers would pay $10 for Internet access on flights that last less than one hour, and 10 percent would pay on flights that last between one and two hours.
"I don't know if that's addiction or what," Harteveldt said, "but clearly we feel a need to remain in touch everywhere we are."
JetBlue passenger Josh Trout, an inflatable boat manager at Portsmouth-based Life Raft & Survival Equipment Inc., said he doesn't liked being overwhelmed by unopened e-mails after trips. The 28-year-old's 8830 BlackBerry was rendered useless this week during a four-day business trip in the Bahamas, where he said he couldn't use his cellphone or WiFi services.
So, the minutes that his delayed Boston-bound plane sat on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York Wednesday evening provided precious time to catch up on the "copious amounts" of e-mail from customers, he said.
If one of his next flights is on BetaBlue, "I'd be ecstatic," he said.
JetBlue passengers won't find out that they'll be on the WiFi aircraft until they arrive at the gate. BetaBlue will not be dedicated to a specific route, the airline said. Chances are good, though, that the plane will show up at Logan International Airport, because Boston is the carrier's second-largest market and the departure point for seven West Coast routes.
Passengers will be limited to a special Web page for Yahoo's e-mail or messenger. If they try to go to Google's Gmail e-mail service or to another Web page, they will automatically be routed back to Yahoo. That's because JetBlue's WiFi service is being provided in partnership with Yahoo, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion, and LiveTV, a JetBlue subsidiary that won an FCC spectrum auction to provide the WiFi.
JetBlue is offering only e-mail and instant messaging because those activities consume less bandwidth than surfing the Internet, watching streaming videos, or playing online games. The carrier said it is not ruling out wider Internet access in the future.
Travelers will be allowed to hop online while the airplane is at or above 10,000 feet. The aircraft will be equipped with a LiveTV technician sitting in a jump seat at the back of the plane to provide tech support, but it won't be outfitted with electrical sockets for recharging the devices' drained batteries.
So far, the service has kinks. As BetaBlue flies across the country, its onboard monitors pick up a WiFi signal from 100 base stations that are spaced roughly 300 miles apart throughout the United States. The signal is handed off between bases, which can cause the service to conk out.
During a two-hour, secret trial run from New York to just south of Washington, D.C., and back Wednesday, passengers ran into error messages for at least the first 15 minutes that said the Web pages wouldn't load. A technician rebooted the onboard server.
The next day, the airline discovered the problem was that a ground cell tower had fizzled out - something a JetBlue spokeswoman said happens "very infrequently."
Nicole C. Wong can be reached at nwong@globe.com. 