IN NEXT FEW MONTHS, Southwest Airlines, which transports more passengers than any other U.S. carrier, will begin equipping its 540 Boeing 737 jetliners with high-speed wireless Internet systems, similar to what can be found at a Starbucks, McDonald’s, malls and many other earthbound “hot spots.”
Travelers with Wi-Fi-enabled computers and smartphones will be able to browse the Web, play online music, games and podcasts, and send and receive e-mails while flying over land, water and international borders
Developed over the past three years, the new aircraft-to-satellite service, called Row 44, is the brainchild of a small southern California engineering firm of the same name. It’s supplying the equipment and technology for high-speed mobile broadband via a subsidiary of Hughes Communications (HUGH), the world’s largest provider of broadband satellite services.
Pricing for the new service hasn’t been fixed yet, but passengers were charged $2 to $12 per flight during trial runs on four Southwest Airlines jetliners last year. “We found that our passengers, especially business travelers, were definitely interested in onboard Internet access, and voiced high expectations about its use,” says Doug Murri, a senior operations manager with Southwest (LUV) who is overseeing the new service’s implementation.
Row 44 is named for the last row of the old DC-10, the least desirable because it was next to the toilet and had seats that didn’t recline and hence needed something extra to enhance a passenger’s flight experience. Southwest will begin installing the systems on its 737s soon; the project is expected to be completed by mid-2011.
A number of other airlines are following Southwest’s lead by offering some form of Wi-Fi on certain flights, but on a very limited basis. Alaska Airlines is trying out Row 44 on some flights, and says it hopes to install it on most of its planes this year. And, in Europe, a Norwegian air-shuttle service plans to add Row 44 in 2010.
“We think Internet access will become standard service on all airlines in the near future,” says Gregg Fialcowitz, Row 44′s president. “We are currently in discussion with a number of European, Mideast and Asian airlines that are interested in the service,” adds Fialcowitz. “We believe our service will be aboard more than 5,000 airliners within five years.”
That’s music to the ears of Arunas Slekys, Hughes Communications’ vice president of corporate marketing, who sees “broadband on the go” as a new niche market. “It’s not just airliners that need Internet connections, but also boats, trains, vehicles and other mobile operations that are beyond the reach of standard, land-based broadband,” he says. As a satellite supplier of airline broadband, Hughes receives a monthly fee to maintain the customer-to-satellite connection.
“Row 44 opens up a worldwide opportunity for Hughes to supply our advanced, broadband satellite technology and services in a new business market,” he says. More important, it represents an “emerging, potentially high growth part of our global enterprise business,” which generates about half (48%) of the company’s $1 billion-plus in annual revenue.
More From Barron’s
- Our Stock Picks Modestly Bested the Bull Market
- Bed Bath & Beyond Execs’ $13 Million in Sales
- Time Warner Cable: Big Div Coming?
Similar Posts:
- Flying Home for the Holidays (Deal of the Day)
- Flight ban extended due to volcanic ash
- Tips for Reducing Your TV and Broadband Bills
- Can comparison sites be trusted?
- Cesi Debt Free
