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The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

fortune.com

21–30 of 92 posts

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#21

The economics of airplane wifi remind me of the economics of the hotels wifi. Go to a 5-star hotel and you will pay 15 extra dollars for the priviledge of having a lousy internet access. Go to a small hostel and you will get good internet access for free.

You have to take advantage of that business traveler who is expensing everything has "has to have internet access for work."

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#22
GoGo is quite aggressive about variable pricing. An all-day pass is $16 if you buy it ahead of time, but if you buy it on the plane it can cost up to $50. They also do split testing of their prices and discriminate based on the user agent.

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#23
post #15

Does anyone really expect anything of airline flights anymore? At least those of us in commercial/economy class? Years ago great customer service was defined as giving someone the can and some free peanuts. Now it's touch screen "entertainment in-flight systems." Not like any of those things have made the flying experience any better. So I just pick the cheapest flights available. Sure, Wi-Fi is a plus, but the envir…

Now it's touch screen "entertainment in-flight systems"...

Enjoy that while it lasts. United is moving to a BYOD system where you use your own phone or tablet to watch in-flight entertainment. The new cabins have removed all screens and armrest audio systems (oh yeah, and headphones too)

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/ente...

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#24

GoGo is quite aggressive about variable pricing. An all-day pass is $16 if you buy it ahead of time, but if you buy it on the plane it can cost up to $50. They also do split testing of their prices and discriminate based on the user agent.

They charge lower prices for mobile devices, so an easy cost-saving hack is to spoof your user agent to look like an iphone or android device.

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#25

Paying for wifi: So airlines in America is giving not giving great customer service. What else is new? Meanwhile in Europe low-cost carriers like Norwegian offers free wifi on most flights.

Really? They're all bad, but we're going to go ahead and argue over who's less bad? Come on...

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#26

The economics of airplane wifi remind me of the economics of the hotels wifi. Go to a 5-star hotel and you will pay 15 extra dollars for the priviledge of having a lousy internet access. Go to a small hostel and you will get good internet access for free.

Marriott are throwing in wifi these days, but you have to pay for premium access if you want to stream some Netflix

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#27
post #15

Does anyone really expect anything of airline flights anymore? At least those of us in commercial/economy class? Years ago great customer service was defined as giving someone the can and some free peanuts. Now it's touch screen "entertainment in-flight systems." Not like any of those things have made the flying experience any better. So I just pick the cheapest flights available. Sure, Wi-Fi is a plus, but the envir…

Now it's touch screen "entertainment in-flight systems"... Enjoy that while it lasts. United is moving to a BYOD system where you use your own phone or tablet to watch in-flight entertainment. The new cabins have removed all screens and armrest audio systems (oh yeah, and headphones too) http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/ente...

United are cheapskates; they rank slightly above Spirit Airlines in my book.

And at least I can get good games on my Android tablet. The ones on Virgin America flights are shitty SDL ports of old arcade and puzzle games with glitchy graphics.

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#28
Although I don't work remotely, I can get most of my work done from my laptop even with very low bandwidth wifi. So even $35 for a 6 hour flight is a good deal for the company considering I'm getting hundreds of dollars worth of work done. I even pay out of my own pocket when I'm not traveling for work, since if I'm not doing anything else I might as well do work.

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#29
post #15

Does anyone really expect anything of airline flights anymore? At least those of us in commercial/economy class? Years ago great customer service was defined as giving someone the can and some free peanuts. Now it's touch screen "entertainment in-flight systems." Not like any of those things have made the flying experience any better. So I just pick the cheapest flights available. Sure, Wi-Fi is a plus, but the envir…

Now it's touch screen "entertainment in-flight systems"... Enjoy that while it lasts. United is moving to a BYOD system where you use your own phone or tablet to watch in-flight entertainment. The new cabins have removed all screens and armrest audio systems (oh yeah, and headphones too) http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/ente...

Hilarious.

That's why the key is not having any expectations.

Re: The economics of in-flight Wi-Fi

#30

GoGo is quite aggressive about variable pricing. An all-day pass is $16 if you buy it ahead of time, but if you buy it on the plane it can cost up to $50. They also do split testing of their prices and discriminate based on the user agent.

Also, if you have an AMEX Platinum you get 10 GoGo passes (per year, I think)
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