Happy Monday everyone! Hope you had a great weekend…
Delta’s Wi-Fi installations continue with Engineering now focused on the B757-200 and MD90 fleets. We expect the remaining 15 MD90s to be complete by the end of the month. In parallel, Engineering teams are working on the B767-300 and B737-800 supplemental type certificates.
To sum it up, 40% of Delta’s pre-merger domestic mainline fleet now features Wi-Fi. I know several of you frequent posters to this blog have used the system and I really appreciate the comments. Based on customer and employee feedback, we’re planning on rolling out new monthly pass pricing in the next month or so, which will provide additional purchase options – in addition to the mobile and laptop plans. Info will be posted here in the coming weeks.
And finally, here are a couple pics – a shot of the “Wi-Fi Onboard” decal found at each boarding door (above) and of one of the two air-to-ground antennas found on the bottom of each Wi-Fi-equipped plane. To give some perspective as to the size of the antenna, it’s about the size of a paperback book – about 5” wide and protrudes about 9” from the underbelly.
And here are the fleet deets:
MD88 — 115 aircraft
MD90 — 1 aircraft
B757-200 — 14 aircraft
Until next week!
Chris B.
Sr. Product Manager, IFE
May 4th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
As always, thanks Chris! Unfortunately Delta isn’t in my (non-existent) travel plans of the near future
but possibly doing a cross-country trip this October. I look forward to using it then (if not earlier)!
May 4th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Chris:
Did you receive a newly painted 747-400 today?
May 4th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Used the wifi the other day for the first time (I had been on a lot of MD-90s over the past two months). Was great to have it – our flight was delayed, so it was nice to be able to communicate to my friend that he could get to the airport a little later to pick me up.
No glitches whatsoever, and was pleased with the speed on it.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
I fly on mostly 757/767/MD90 and never encountered a Delta jet with Wi-Fi. But last week I was on an equipped MD88 JFK-FLL and it was awesome. Got to use both my laptop and iPod. I can’t believe what a difference it made to be connected to the “outside world” in flight! I hope Delta never allows voice calls, but texting, emailing and surfing was the best.
One request for Tech & Maintenance to collaborate on: powerports. I used to fly AA all the time, and having power at your seat is a must. Plus, Wi-Fi is only good as far as your hardware has juice. Every seat in First should have power, and probably a few rows of Coach, too (like first 8-10 plus exit rows). Thanks!
May 5th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Hey Chris, can you list the 14 757s? I seem to be missing some on my list. Thanks,
Justin
May 5th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Chris. When do you all plan on rolling out the first 767 with the new Lie-Flat Seat? I booked a flight from DTW to LHR for July 7th and saw that the seat map configuration was of 1-2-1 (new seats). I am anxious to see “real” pictures of the cabin and not the computer graphics. Thanks!
May 5th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
looks cool!! I don’t have a laptop yet so I won’t be able to test it anytime soon, mostly though I fly on Delta Connection out of KHPN so it doesn’t matter anyway. I see hear that a lot of people love it and like all Delta products I am sure it is great.
Though what happened to the excitement of just flying?? Being a person who loves anything that has wings I would think having an internet connection would take away from things.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Chris,
I completely agree with FLL Global’s comments above, having wifi available for laptop/ipod touch is an incredible amenity on the flights now and the power port idea would be huge. Additionally, from a pricing standpoint, i hope you would consider allowing us to purchase blocks of time rather then charging us per flight. I generally have to fly 2 Delta segments both ways on just about every trip i take (80 – 100 flights per year); The vast majority of my flights only allow me to have wifi for about an hour, i pay the $9.95 price for 3 hours and have to pay for it again on the next connecting flight for another hour of usage (so instead of 9.95 for 3 hours, i pay almost $20 for 2 hours). It’s a fantastic service with great performance, but could quickly become costly for someone who flies as much as i do. Just for your consideration; please keep up the good work.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Thanks for the update and looking forward to seeing details on the monthly plans. Most of my flights are domestic two hops with each flight not having enough time >10k feet for me to justify the per flight cost, but a monthly plan may be just right. Of course if there were a marketing promo for Elites that would be even better!
Thanks.