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The Latest Wings With Wi-Fi

Happy New Year! On the Wi-Fi front, Twenty Ten is off to a great start. We’ve installed Wi-Fi on all but one of the original Delta domestic mainline aircraft as announced in our press release and are preparing to begin installation of Wi-Fi on planes that were previously Northwest aircraft beginning the week of January 17 in TPA and DTW.

66% Complete – 343 of 528

MD88:  117 A/C

MD90:  16 A/C

B737-700:  10 A/C

B737-800:  71 A/C

B757-200:  102 A/C

B757-200 ETOPS: 17 A/C

767-300: 10 A/C

TOTAL: 343

Awaiting Supplemental Type Certificate (STC):

A319:  1 A/C

A320:  1 A/C

757-300: 1 A/C

Chris B., Sr. Product Manager

In-Flight Entertainment

The Latest Wings With Wi-Fi (One Year Anniversary Edition)

This is it…the one year anniversary of Delta’s first commercial flight with Wi-Fi on Dec. 16, 2008. Fast forward…one year later and we now have inflight Internet available on 325 planes and more than 1,200 flights a day. And that accounts for just 60% of the fleet that will ultimately be equipped. Here are the latest stats:

wifi2

Installed Aircraft:

MD88
All (117)

MD90
All (16)

757-200 (115)
All pre-merger Delta EXCEPT 654, 6801-6802, 6804, 6806, 6809, 6812 and 6903

757-300 (1) Awaiting STC
5801

767-300 (7)
125-129 and 137-138

737-700 (3)
3601, 3606, 3608

737-800 (63)
All except 3752, 3760-3761, 3763-3764, 3766, 3706, 3770

A319 (1) Awaiting STC
3122

A320 (1) Awaiting STC
3209

My next update will be after the Christmas holiday. So until then…have a safe and wonderful holiday with your family and friends!

Chris B.
Sr. Product Manager
In-Flight Entertainment

The Latest Wings With Wi-Fi (The ‘300′ Edition)

After an incredibly successful promotion last week, in which all Delta customers received complimentary Wi-Fi courtesy of eBay, we reached a key milestone this week as Delta and Aircell technicians installed Gogo Inflight Internet on the 300th Delta aircraft. As readers of this blog know, Delta has more Wi-Fi-equipped aircraft than any other airline on the planet and the latest 737-800 installation was an important moment in the development of this program. Through the remainder of 2009, we’ll install Wi-Fi on roughly 40 additional aircraft. We expect to finish the pre-merger Delta domestic fleet in the coming weeks and ramp up work on the pre-merger Northwest fleet in early January. It’s hard to imagine that just one year ago, we operated four MD88s on the La Guardia Shuttle routes. How things have changed!

Over the course of the next several months, we’ll be making several upgrades to Gogo that will make the onboard experience even better. The first enhancement happened Wednesday when Aircell activated a brand new cell tower, just northeast of Atlanta, in Westminster, SC. As traffic volumes have increased, so has the network’s ability to accommodate all you busy Web surfers on Delta aircraft. Aircell will also be adding new towers in Arizona, Wyoming and Maryland by the end of January. Beyond adding cell towers, existing cell sites have been split into smaller sectors as well. When we first launched with four MD88s, each cell site had three sectors. Today, half of the 93 towers have been upgraded to six sector cell sites, which basically doubles the capacity of the network in that area.

Another area of development is with the inflight portal. Gogo 2.0 is about to launch, and users who are familiar with our portal will begin seeing changes as we migrate from 1.0 to 2.0 across the fleet. We’ve enhanced usability, improved transaction times and given the portal a facelift! In fact, we’ll begin rolling it out next week in a beta phase. If you see the new portal and have feedback, don’t hesitate to drop us a line at entertainment@delta.com.

If you’re one of our frequent flyers, check out our 30-day pass. It’s available for $24.95 for a limited time. I actually bought a pass a couple weeks ago (yes, I pay for Wi-Fi) and it’s a great deal if you’re taking more than two flights in the next 30 days.

Fleet Deets: Which aircraft have Wi-Fi?

MD88
All (117)

MD90
All (16)

757-200 (103)
All pre-merger Delta EXCEPT 612, 616, 658, 660, 6801-6804, 6806-6812, 6814-6817, 6903

757-300 (1) Awaiting STC
5801

767-300 (5)
125-127, 129 and 138

737-700 STC Approved-Awaiting Reactivation
3601

737-800 (55)
3701-3705, 3707-3721, 3723-3745, 3747-3750, 3753-3756, 3762, 3767-3768, 3771

A319 (1) Awaiting STC
3122

A320 (1) Awaiting STC
3209

Chris B.
Sr. Product Manager
In-Flight Entertainment

(Thanks to Aircell’s Dave B., who provided details about the new towers and sectorization)

P.S. Check out this really interesting post from the folks at Gadling…they scored a behind the scenes tour of Aircell HQ.

The Latest Wings With Wi-Fi (eBay Holiday Edition)

Hello everyone…I apologize that it’s been so long since my last comprehensive Wi-Fi update. I’ve been doing a lot of traveling for work lately and a lot of the Wi-Fi activity has been focused on pre-installation activities. But things have picked up again and we’ve got a ton of cool stuff to share…

As of this update Delta has installed Wi-Fi on more than 51% of the combined (pre-merger Delta + Northwest) domestic mainline fleet, which is a total of 269 out of 520 planes. We’ve completed the MD88 and MD90 fleets and have recently ramped up installations across the 757-200 and 737-800 fleets. Engineering teams are on track to cross the 300 aircraft mark by the end of 2009.

Over the past month we’ve also installed Wi-Fi on three additional aircraft types…the A319, A320 and 757-300. We’re still awaiting the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) for these three types but expect them to be operational in December.

The really BIG news, however, is that we’re teaming up with eBay to provide complimentary access to every customer on every Wi-Fi-enabled flight from Nov. 24-30. It’s a win-win-win partnership in that our customers get free access, eBay is able to reach an entirely new audience and we’re able to build awareness about the Wi-Fi product via a new channel.

In fact, we expect more than 1 million customers will be able to benefit from the promotion during Thanksgiving week (just enter the promo code EBAYWIFI). That’s a lot of people doing their holiday shopping on eBay, sending instant messages and updating Facebook…all while 7 miles up and speeding through the sky at 530 mph!

Given the amount of engineering and scheduling work that’s gone into scoping and installing Wi-Fi on 9 different aircraft types and nearly 300 planes, it’s pretty amazing that in less than one year we’ve gone from zero planes with Wi-Fi to the world’s largest Wi-Fi-enabled fleet and the most expansive Wi-Fi network in the sky…and that’s all due to the outstanding work of our Engineering teams and partners at Aircell.

I’d love to hear your feedback about your Wi-Fi experiences on Delta. I’ll be traveling during over the holidays (NRT-SGN-BKK-SIN-MNL) but will post the next update during the first week of December. Until then, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

MD88: 117 A/C (All)

M90: 16 A/C (All)

B737-700: 1 A/C

B737-800: 24 A/C

B757: 103 A/C

B753: 1 A/C (Awaiting STC)

B767: 5 A/C

A319: 1 A/C (Awaiting STC)

A320: 1 A/C (Awaiting STC)

Chris B., Sr Product Manager, IFE

*Offers subject to change. Use of the Gogo service is subject to terms of use available at gogoinflight.com.

Log On For Free WiFi And Fight Breast Cancer

On October 31, Gogo Inflight Internet will be free on all Gogo-equipped Delta flights and for each free session that day, Aircell will donate $1 to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, up to $10,000. Additionally, all Gogo proceeds from the Pink Plane in the month of October will be donated to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Customers can help support the Foundation’s mission to achieve prevention and a cure for breast cancer in our lifetime by accessing Gogo on their Gogo-equipped Delta flight this Saturday for free using the code GOPINK.