Jet Blue is set to announce free in-flight WiFi with limited access to email and messaging. The service will be available on only one of the airliner’s jets as an experiment and users will only have access to Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo Messenger. BlackBerry users with WiFi-enabled handsets will also be able to send and receive email.
The first flight will be on Tuesday, December 11 from New York to San Francisco. The jet will then fly various routes to gauge customer reaction to the WiFi service.
“Right now the goal is to offer a messaging service and do it for free,” said Jet Blue Spokesperson Bryan Baldwin. “We are constantly looking at ways to enhance the in-flight experience with free options. With the RIM 8820 and Curve 8320 you’ll be able to access your email as you would on the ground.”
JetBlue will test the service for several months and may make changes to the service before possibly rolling out free WiFi service to its entire fleet. The free in-flight WiFi uses air-to-ground signals, which is managed by Live TV. A radio on the plane will pass data to towers located throughout the continental U.S.
This is a good first move, but for this to really ‘take off,’ JetBlue needs to offer more than just Yahoo! email and chat. Why not the whole web or at least access to a list of a few hundred ‘safe’ sites? Regardless it’s a move in the right direction and I like the price: free.
“This was a really good starting point for us,” Baldwin said. He reminded me that this is the beginning of the service, and it hasn’t even been officially announced.
One thing JetBlue won’t be bringing in-flight is VOIP.
“Our customers have told us they don’t want voice options, they want a quiet cabin,” Baldwin said.
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