Four pieces of great inflight WiFi news from Gogo

Inflight Internet provider Aircell released not one, but four different pieces of good news yesterday afternoon. We’ve translated all the PR-speak into the stuff you need to know if you want to stay up to date on the latest developments of Internet in the skies.

American Airlines widget

American Airlines is taking its rollout of the Aircell Gogo inflight service pretty serious – taking a page from the early days of WiFi on Virgin America, American Airlines developed a simple WiFi tracking widget.

The tool allows you to check whether your flight will come equipped with the Gogo inflight Internet service. Of course, the target we all want is that these tools won’t be necessary, and that every flight you get on will have the service, but until then, lets be grateful for this handy widget.
One millionth user

In October, Gogo welcomed its one millionth subscriber. I remember taking one of the first ever Gogo enabled flights last year, and in those 12 months, Aircell installed the Gogo service on over 600 commercial planes.

This is an amazing accomplishment, and to show how fast the growth is – the two million mark will be reached in January 2010. With over 100,000 new users each week, it is pretty obvious that the Gogo inflight service is highly popular.

Buy one get one
on AirTran

Gogo customers who purchase an inflight Internet session on AirTran get an early Christmas promo this Holiday season – after buying one session, you’ll get a coupon emailed for a free session.

The promo ends December 31st, and is applied to any Gogo flight pass of $12.95 or less. It is not valid on discounted or free sessions.

Air Canada begins WiFi trials

Starting today, Air Canada will begin a trial offering WiFi on select Toronto-Los Angeles and Montreal-Los Angeles flights. The service only works over the continental US, but with these long flights, that means it’ll be available for the majority of your trip.

The trial lasts till January 29th, and after that period, Air Canada will analyze customer feedback and determine how to proceed with a fleet wide rollout. Eventually, Aircell hopes to extend the reach of their network into Canada using the Canadian ground network licensee.