Steal Boingo wireless by clearing your cookies

by Grant Martin on

If you’ve got time to kill at the airport, wireless can be a life saver. In most terminals, however, wireless isn’t free, and three out of four of the available providers charge an arm and a leg for service. So what’s a cheapskate to do to access his Facebook account without paying through the nose?

Steal wireless, of course. Most people know that if they stand with the proximity of an airline lounge, many of the clubs have unsecured wireless networks. Other open signals can proliferate through the terminal as well, and its not uncommon to see people wandering around the empty halls, holding up notebooks to the sky.

Another way that one can score free wireless comes by using a loophole in the Boingo “sponsored ad” service. Many (not all) Boingo hotspots offer a few minutes free for those willing to jump through a hoop or watch an ad or try out a free service. In JFK’s terminal 8, one can get 20 minutes of free service by trying out Microsoft’s substandard search engine, Bing.

Boingo and your web browser calculate this time using what’s called a cookie, a small thread of data that’s stored on your computer. And cookies, like all security tidbits, are removable. All that you have to do is clear your cookies, reload the Boingo page a few times and reclick the free service ad. In Firefox, it goes like this:

  • Connect to the Boingo hotspot.
  • If you don’t immediately see an ad for sponsored service, reload the page or navigate around a bit on the Boingo website. It’s possible that this market doesn’t have a sponsor, so don’t be disappointed if nothing pops up.
  • Jump through the hoops for free service.
  • Update your Facebook status, Tweet what underpants you’re wearing and stalk your new love interest online.
  • When you run out of time, click Edit|Preferences|Privacy|Show Cookies
  • Ignoring all of your embarassing stored cookies, navigate down to “boingo.aero” or anything with boingo in it.
  • Click “Remove Cookies”
  • Reload the Boingo connection page. If necessary, disconnect from the wifi network and reconnect.
  • Repeat

Easy as pie, and before you know it, it’ll be boarding time. Happy browsing!

Southwest to offer wi-fi on all flights by 2010

by Katie Hammel on

To add to its cheap fares, no-extra-fees policy, and wise-cracking flight attendants, Southwest Airlines is giving us one more reason to love the low-cost carrier. Southwest says that, by the first quarter of 2010, wi-fi internet will be available on all flights.

Southwest and Row 44 have been testing the service on four planes since February of 2009. In a press release, Southwest Airlines’ Senior VP of Marketing and Revenue Management says Southwest is “very happy with both the technical performance of the system and the response of the Customers who have used it.”

Southwest is also testing various price points, so there’s no word yet on how much the service will cost.

The Internet – an airline’s best friend, and their biggest enemy

by Scott Carmichael on

Not much has had a bigger impact on what happens behind the scenes at airlines than the Internet. Just 15 years ago, a flight involved a trip to a travel agent, a call to the airline or one of their now extinct City Ticketing Offices (CTO).

In this article, I’ll take a brief look at how the Internet has helped, and harmed the airlines.

The Internet as their best friend forever

Remotely accessible booking systems had been around for years before the Internet took over – and many of the old online services had some way to sell tickets through their application.

Business travelers and aviation freaks often had access to dial-up booking systems. Those systems were pretty horrible to use, required a complex array of text commands, and were nowhere near as friendly as the current web based booking engines. That said – for geeks, they were awfully cool to use, and booking tickets using them was much more fun than it is nowadays (anyone remember War Games?).

Once airlines learned how to embrace the Internet, they embarked on a one way trip towards getting rid of expensive legacy systems, some of which had been in use since the early 70’s.



The Internet is a one way ride to making a ton of money

Many of the things we used to take for granted are gone – and the Internet is to blame for that. Remember printed ticket stock? Those red carbon prints are gone from most US airlines (they are still used for specialized tickets and many foreign airlines still issue them).

Checking in at the airport used to involve a smile and someone handing you a boarding pass. Nowadays you check in the night before, and print your boarding pass at home. Major airports used to have 30 or 40 staffed desks, now they can handle all their passengers with just 4 or 5 people.

So, it is needless to say that airlines LOVE the Internet. They don’t need thousands of ticket agents, expensive real estate for ticketing offices, and in most cases, the first time you actually deal with an airline employee is when you step up to the gate.

From Internet savings to Internet earnings

Once airlines mastered the art of saving themselves a ton of money, they started to use the Internet to make money. Online check-in has become so popular, that people who don’t use it are being penalized. If you want to get in touch with an old fashioned phone agent to book your ticket, you’ll be charged a fee. United Airlines wants $25 per ticket booked using their phone agents.

The future of the Internet for airlines is simple – everything you want to do, will be done through their online tools. When upstart airline Skybus started flying in 2007, they did not even invest in phone lines – complaints, questions and other queries had to be emailed to them. Of course, they may have been a little ahead of the curve, because they were bankrupt in just 11 months.


The Internet as the enemy

With the proliferation of social networks, the Internet is slowly coming back to bite the airlines in the behind.

Information spreads faster than ever, and news (good and bad) can quickly go “viral”. One example of how the Internet actually hurts their bottom line, is when someone discovers a fare mistake.

Fat finger deals

Even though airlines use more technology than ever behind the scenes, a lot of the processes are still supported by real people. And anywhere people are involved, someone is eventually going to screw up (badly).

Airlines work with thousands of airfares – every single city pair has a long list of fare codes, specific dates for those fares and hundreds of other pieces of data. A “fat finger deal” happens when someone sitting behind a computer mistypes – instead of expecting customers to pay $500 for a flight, they’ll load it for $50, or $5. In other cases, an airline may forget to charge additional fees.

Recently, a large airline loaded 100’s of fares to Europe, but forgot to include the fuel surcharge. In the past, it would take quite some time for travelers to discover this, and even if they did, it would probably only make it to a couple of their friends through email.

Nowadays when something like this happens, someone discovers it right away, and in a matter of minutes the news is being shared with millions of people.

When you can fly to Europe for just $250 all in, news travels very fast. Services like the popular Farecompare can find out of the ordinary airfares within minutes, and share them as soon as they discover them.

In the past an airline may have been able to fix its mistake before more than one or two hundred people took advantage of it – nowadays the damages could be in the millions before they even notice something is wrong.

Any PR is good PR no longer applies

The old mantra “any PR is good PR” no longer applies to the Internet. When United Airlines broke the guitar of one of their customers, the guy vowed revenge.

That revenge resulted in a song about how useless United Airlines is, and has been watched by over 4 Million people.

I’ve seen some “specialists” claim that this didn’t really hurt United Airlines, and it is indeed debatable whether a popular Youtube clip can hurt them, but like with many viral clips, this one made the crossover to old school media. I’m pretty sure that is when the United executives started to notice they really screwed up.

Newspapers, TV stations and magazines all devoted some of their coverage to an airline throwing a guitar, breaking it, and being too incompetent to pay for its mistake.

A quick web search shows that almost every TV news station in the country covered this – and there is no denying that this severely hurt the brand name (if it could be damaged any more).

In the past, a seasoned journalist would contact their favorite PR rep at the airline, and ask for an “official statement”. Nowadays, the news is considered old by the time the old school press covers it.

Airlines invested in employees to be hip and interesting on Facebook and Twitter, but now those people suddenly have to learn damage control as people start Tweeting about how horrible the airline is. When one of the trending topics on a social network is “United Sucks”, even the best PR flack won’t be able to put a positive spin on that.

AirTran provides obvious internet etiquette tips

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Is AirTran the pot or the kettle? It’s hard to say, but the airline that has done a great job of making passengers uncomfortable – think of it as the Greyhound experience of the sky – is now telling passengers how they can keep from making their fellow fliers unhappy. It’s like giving a stern warning and nothing more to a bank robber caught in the act: it won’t do much.

Nonetheless, now that AirTran has wireless internet service on all its flights, the airline has issued Internetiquette: A Guide to Keeping Everyone in Line While They’re Online. This list of suggestions will be found in every seatback pocket, right with the emergency card.

This isn’t exactly a new concern. The debate over in-flight porn may be behind us but is not forgotten. And, even non-sexual computer interaction may involve some actions that disturb other passengers – from muttering to yourself to shuffling papers around.

So, what does AirTran recommend? Find out after the jump.

1. Flight attendants are not tech support (no shit)

2. Online investors shouldn’t give advice to other passengers (would be nice even on flights without wi-fi)

3. Be aware of anyone who could be reading over your shoulder

4. Don’t offer to land the plane for the flight crew

Yeah, not much to work with … you can check out the list here.

Day in the Cloud goes live at 30,000 feet

by Mike Barish on

Earlier in the month, we told you about Virgin America and Google’s Day in the Cloud Event. And yesterday, I let you know that I would be on board one of the competing flights to take part in the event at 30,000 feet. And that’s exactly where I was this morning as I answered trivia questions, solved puzzles and joined thousands of people on Virgin America flights and on the ground competing to win tons of great prizes. I even tweeted for Gadling during the flight. So, what happens when technology, puzzles and flying intersect? Organized chaos and lots of fun.

I was on flight 921 from LAX to SFO. A competing flight from SFO to LAX was attempting to beat the best score on our flight. But there was one glitch: there were log-in issues when it came time to connect to the gogo in-flight wifi. It seems that there may have been problems with the company that handles the billing for the internet service. So, when a plane-load of people attempted to log into the system simultaneously, a Day in the Cloud became, temporarily, a day at the “still loading” screen.

Eventually, most of the issues were worked out. They even found the bandwidth for Good Day LA to broadcast live on the flight. Reporter Suzanne Marques covered the event and you may even spot me when you watch her segment (Hint: I’m wearing a Gadling t-shirt).

Google created the game and put together a tough contest. I was seated next to professional puzzle designer and competitor Wei-Hwa Huang, who was invited to take the challenge. He seemed to have a much easier time solving the puzzles and finding the answers in Google Apps than I did. His mental gymnastics and fast fingers resulted in the highest score of anyone on the two competing flights, which meant that everyone on Flight 921 walked away with prizes.

What can we learn from the Day in the Cloud? Well, in-flight wifi is here to stay, but, there are still some kinks to work out. For one, gogo sets the pricing for the airlines but they are considering lowering the costs to entice more users. Right now, many people find it too expensive. Also, the 3G network, while reliable, is still glitchy at times, especially if there is a rush of people logging in. However, I was impressed with the overall speed and reliability of the system once things settled down a bit and I’d defiitely utilize the service in the future.

The Day in the Cloud contest is running all day today, so you can still compete at home, in the office or on a Virgin America flight. Remember, though, that when the captain puts on the Fasten Seatbelt sign, that you need to return to your seat, buckle up and put your thinking cap on. My bad jokes, like wifi on Virgin America flights today, are free.