Many of us have been waiting for the day when we could finally feed our Blackberry addiction on flights, when there is nothing else to do and you've already seen the movie they're showing. That day is here - albeit with strings attached. Starting December 11, JetBlue will offer Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger, and Crackberry users can also check their mail/messenger. The service is free and there is some affinity between Yahoo! users and JetBlue fans, so it's a step in the right direction. The service is still limited though. If JetBlue could offer unlimited free Web access, this could help build their brand loyalty just like DIRECTV made them hip and different.
American Airlines and Virgin will both start offering Web access n Spring 2008, but of course there is a catch - $10 a flight for access. The business travelers will take the bait since they can expense it. The leisure (i.e. grad student) travelers like me aren't as likely to bite - it feels like yet another way the airlines are nickel-and-diming us - but then again, I'm already spending $5 on a magazine. So maybe the airlines just need to market and frame it the right way...
URL:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/07/how-do-you-build-an-airline-offer-free-wi-fi/#comments
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