AirTran To Offer Inflight Internet Fleetwide

AirTran Airways today announced plans to roll out onboard Internet capabilities fleetwide by the end of the summer through an agreement with inflight broadband provider Aircell.

AirTran is the latest domestic carrier to announce plans to roll out inflight wireless Internet capabilities with Aircell, following similar efforts by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Virgin America, among others.

AirTran said by the end of the summer it will have launched Wi-Fi on its 86-aircraft Boeing 717 fleet and its 50-aircraft Boeing 737 fleet. "Other airlines have put Wi-Fi on one or two or a dozen planes," AirTran noted in a statement. "AirTran is the first airline to push Wi-Fi to the entire fleet at one time."

The availability of inflight wireless Internet capabilities is growing more prevalent among U.S.-based carriers, according to analysis released last week by market research firm In-Stat. Even before the AirTran announcement, In-Stat estimated that 800 aircraft would offer such services by year-end, up from 25 planes outfitted with Wi-Fi in 2008. "The in-flight broadband market is still emerging and will grow well beyond $1 billion annually by 2012," In-Stat noted.

Delta is in the midst of rolling out the Aircell system, and this week said it had installed Wi-Fi on 139 planes. The carrier expects to complete installation on the more than 300 planes in its domestic fleet by the end of September.

American also is in the midst of rolling the system out domestically, with plans to bring Wi-Fi to 300 planes over the next two years, following a 15-plane pilot initiated last summer. United in January announced plans to outfit 13 transcontinental Boeing 757 aircraft with Aircell's inflight wireless Internet capabilities in the second half of this year.

Aircell charges between $7.95 and $12.95 per leg to use the service, depending on the length of haul, though it also offers Wi-Fi-enabled handheld devices to be used inflight for $7.95 regardless of length of haul.

Aircell competitor Row 44—which uses a satellite-based system to enable inflight wireless access, compared with Aircell's air-to-ground system—has gained customers in Southwest Airlines, in the midst of a three-airplane pilot, and Alaska Airlines.