San Francisco — People around the globe already enjoy many of Google’s services online. But how about enjoying in-flight Wi-Fi and that for free? For the next three months, travelers flying on Virgin America over the holidays, will be able to access those same services from above Earth too. Virgin America is teaming up with Google to offer free in-flight Wi-Fi service on every flight during the holiday season, thanks to Google, the companies said Monday.
At a time when air travelers are faced with burgeoning fees for just about everything, Google and Virgin America on Monday announced they are partnering to offer free Wi-Fi Internet connectivity to all Virgin America passengers traveling between November 10, 2009, and January 15, 2010.
“We have discovered that both business and leisure travelers are using the service at a growing rate, and many consider the availability of in-flight Wi-Fi one of the key factors in their booking decision,” said Porter Gale, vice president of marketing at Virgin America. “We are thrilled to team up with Google to deliver this special holiday gift to our loyal guests. We also hope it persuades more new users to try out the service.”
Marissa Mayer, VP of search products and user experience at Google, said in a statement that Google wanted to give travelers a gift that makes travel easier and more convenient.
The service itself is operated by in-flight broadband supplier Gogo, which is owned by Aircell.
Virgin America has been offering Gogo Wi-Fi service to its entire fleet of planes since May. Typically, the service is available for a price between $5.96 and $12.95, for flights of over three hours. Passengers are charged $9.95 for flights between one and a half hours and three hours. Flights of less than an hour and a half are $5.95.
There is a special deal for people using smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled handhelds that costs $7.95 for flights over one and a half hours. The airline also has also fixed power outlets near every seat. Gogo also offers in-flight Web service to United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and AirTran Airways.
On longer flights, Virgin America reports that up to 25 percent of passengers opt to connect to Wi-Fi.
“As hordes of people pass through airports this holiday season in order to celebrate with their families, the fundamental power of the Internet is in connecting people, and we hope that having a free Wi-Fi connection while en route will make home and family seem that much closer,” said Mayer.
Virgin operates more than 100 daily flights during the holiday months, but it has few routes relative to the other major national carriers. It flies to and from a handful of cities on both coasts of the U.S.
Virgin America estimates that around 12 percent and 15 percent of its travelers are using the Gogo Wi-Fi service, although on longer routes, such as Boston to San Francisco, as many as 25 percent of passengers use the service, Virgin said.
“Since the introduction of Wi-Fi on all of our fleets, we have seen an overwhelmingly positive response from travelers,” Gale, said in a statement.
While Google is sponsoring the service during the promotional period, Virgin’s Gogo-powered in-flight Internet service is not completely free in terms of what you can do with it.
Although Virgin America is, according to a company spokesperson, the only Gogo partner that does not filter Web content, in-flight Internet users still have to agree to Gogo’s Terms of Service.
The Terms of Service disallow the use of VOIP applications, such as Skype, ostensibly as a way to manage bandwidth use and to prevent the sound of planes’ engines from being drowned out by talkative fliers.
Virgin America expects that the offering the Wi-Fi service will help it win more customers. In a recent survey the airline conducted it found that more than half the respondents said that Wi-Fi would influence their choice of airline.
This is not the first time that Google and Virgin have teamed up to promote in-flight Wi-Fi. The duo also teamed up on June 24 to host the Day in the Cloud Challenge, which offered free Wi-Fi on all flights so passengers could compete in an online puzzle challenge. Winners received free flights, free in-flight Wi-Fi, a laptop, and 1 terabyte of online storage from Google for e-mail and photos.
Virgin America operates on routes to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Seattle, Las Vegas, San Diego, Boston, Orange County, Calif., and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.