Gizmodo: flights

How Budget Airlines Undercut the Majors (Spoiler: Infographics)

Mark Wilson — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:20:00 EDT

Personal theory: Man has a natural propensity to question what he reads but believe anything he sees in neat infographic form. And this is one heck of an infographic, comparing budget airlines (like Southwest) to traditional companies like Delta.

(Click on the image to see it bigger.)

I have no idea whether or not all of the stats are true, but I believe the shit out of them. Peach versus baby blue is the new good versus evil. Apply haphazard census information to a bathroom guy graphic and it's un-freggin-questionable. That's the bathroom guy, after all. He's never abused my trust by leading me into a women's restroom only to laugh and laugh while recording the event for a little YouTube subscriber bait.

That's restraint.

Having flown both types of carriers, I'd have never known that a company like Air France has 10x the staff of a company like EasyJet. And I don't know the last time I was served a meal on a non-international flight, no matter how large or expensive the carrier or ticket. [Flickr via Digg]

United Airlines Wi-Fi to Cost $13 Later This Year

Mark Wilson — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:27:02 EST

United has announced more details regarding their long-planned inflight internet services. Coming in the second half of this year, Wi-Fi will cost customers $13 per flight.

The service, provided by Aircell's GoGo (no surprise since they pretty much rule the spectrum), will initially be available on 13 Boeing 757s that fly between New York and California to provide web surfing, email, IMming and corporate VPN access. Hopefully United will roll out the service to those of us not flying coast-to-coast shortly thereafter.

What do you think, is $13 a fair price? I believe it is, though I'd like to see that cost go down on shorter trips (a pricing option that Virgin has already implemented). [United]

Jetblue to Get Internet Access

Travis Hudson — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:52:45 EDT

Bored travelers rejoice. While that little kid may still be kicking your seat—yeah, I'm talking to you $5 vodka ingesting bad mother who let her kid kick my seat for the entire duration of my trip to E3—at least you will be able to have access to the Internet to keep your mind off other airline distractions. This is thanks to a wireless license that JetBlue won from a FCC auction that ended today. They will begin to offer high-speed Internet and other communication services—no cellphone use, though—on their commercial flights.

The company's subsidiary LiveTV LLC bid $7 million for a 1 megahertz wireless license, while a company with ties to AirCell Inc., which designs and sells airborne communications systems, won the 3 megahertz license with a bid of $31.3 million.

Great news for us single guys. Now we can have all of the online porn we could ever want at 30,000 feet. Mile-high club solo aviators division, here I come!– Travis Hudson

JetBlue wins an air-ground wireless license [Reuters]