It’s the dawning of a new age, folks. In-flight Wi-Fi is slowly rolling out across domestic airlines in the US and Delta is looking to capitalize on it by outfitting their entire domestic fleet of aircrafts with Aircell’s GoGo service.
American Airlines and Virgin America have been on-board for some time (though they have yet to launch the service) and this is pretty big news coming from an airline that’s been struggling lately. Having filed for bankruptcy on more than one occasion in recent years, Delta is positioning itself to get back on top of the domestic heap.
In April they announced a merger with Northwest Airlines that would make them the largest domestic carrier in the country and the addition of in-flight Wi-Fi makes them even more enticing for would be travelers.
The first half of 2009 will see 133 of Delta’s MD88/90 airplanes equipped with the service with another 200 Boeing 737, 757 and 767-300s to follow suit. Delta hopes to have more than 330 airplanes equipped to provide the Wi-Fi service by the end of 2009 making it the only major US airline to offer the service across its entire domestic fleet.
GoGo will cost Delta flyers $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 for flights that are longer than three hours.