What’s better than tweeting at 30K feet? The chance to win $10,000 while you do it! This Spring Break we’re excited to work with our friends at Gogo Inflight Internet to help you ‘Keep on Tweeting’ by offering free in-flight Twitter access on all of our wi-fi equipped aircraft until April 14. You will also get a chance to win $10,000 by enrolling in Gogo’s Sweepstakes.

And remember, when you’re in the air you can use any of our apps or view delta.com for free by connecting to Gogo® Inflight Internet.

Next time you’re in the sky make sure to stop by Twitter.com/Delta and say hello!

Happy Tweeting,

Myriallis L.

delta.com & Self Service

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE OR PAYMENT WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. Gogo^®‘s Keep on Tweetin’Sweepstakes starts 3/14/11 at 3:00 AM ET; ends 4/14/11 at 11:59:59 PM ET. Must be legal resident of 50 U.S./D.C. and 18 years or older as of time of entry. One (1) Grand prize of $10,000. Odds depend on number of entries. See Official Rules for complete details. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Sponsor: Aircell LLC, 1250 N. Arlington Heights Road, Itasca, IL 60143. Gogo’s Keep On Tweetin’ Sweepstakes is not administered, sponsored or endorsed by Twitter, Inc.

Today I’m eager to share some great news from our friends at Aircell, the provider of Gogo In-Flight Internet service. Drum roll, please! On Saturday, they completed their 1,000^th Wi-Fi installation! The lucky plane was a Delta DC9-50, which made its first flight with Wi-Fi Tuesday from Detroit. Passengers on board the flight were greeted by the folks at Gogo and treated to complimentary Internet access on board!

It was a great day for Delta as well. The Gogo service was installed on Ship 9877 Saturday evening in Detroit, marking the 524th Wi-Fi installation for us!

In fact, as of today, Sept. 1, nearly all of Delta’s domestic mainline fleet, 529 of 549 aircraft, have been equipped with Wi-Fi service.

The remaining aircraft include (1) A320, (2) DC9-50s and (8) 757-200s.  There are (2) 737-800s and (7) MD90s that have not yet joined the fleet but don’t worry, they’ll be outfitted with Wi-Fi prior to entry into service.  For more info, check out the official Aircell news release.

I hope you’ve been enjoying our Gogo In-Flight Internet service and would love to hear what you think!

P.S. Don’t forget to download our free Delta iPhone app today! It’s great for checking in to your flight, seeing your flight status, getting airport info and a lot more. Plus, you can use the app for free on any Gogo Wi-Fi-enabled flight!

Chris B.
Customer Experience Planning & Development

So I stretched the two-week update window to four weeks…where does the time go!?! Since my last update, we slipped past the 400 mark and are well on the way to achieving our goal of completing the entire domestic mainline fleet by this summer. I want to make a point of thanking our Engineering group and the Aircell technical teams responsible for the Wi-Fi installations. I still find it extraordinary that in just 18 months Delta will have gone from 1 airplane to a fleet of 540. So again, kudos to the folks at TechOps and the Aircell installation teams.

Our Wi-Fi partner, Aircell, continues to enhance the Gogo network with the introduction of new cell towers and by splitting existing towers into additional sectors. This “sectorization” provides more bandwidth to each plane, which enhances the onboard broadband experience — especially within high traffic flight paths — like the Northeast corridor.

Also of note, our friends (and codeshare partners) at Alaska Airlines, recently announced that they would be equipping their entire fleet with Gogo Inflight Internet…and Aircell announced additional cell towers would be installed in Alaska in order to cover the Alaska Airlines network. Good stuff.

Delta by the numbers…some interesting factoids:

The 437 Wi-Fi-equipped Delta aircraft represent 56% of the world’s entire Wi-Fi-enabled fleet.

Delta offers nearly 1,400 daily domestic flights with Wi-Fi; each day 180,000 customers fly on Wi-Fi-enabled Delta planes.

Since the launch of inflight Wi-Fi in December 2008, more than 1 million customers have used Wi-Fi on Delta planes.

Fleet Deets:

B737-700 10 (Fleet complete)
B737-800 71 (Fleet complete…note that 2 additional 737-800s will be equipped with Wi-Fi prior to joining the fleet)
B757-200 103 of 132
B757-200 ETOPS 17 of 17 (fleet complete)
B757-300 1 of 16 (deactivated pending STC)
B767-300 10 (Fleet complete)
B767-300 ETOPS 0 of 4
A319 47 of 49
A320 44 of 69
DC9-50 1 of 33 (deactivated pending STC)
MD88 117 (Fleet complete)
MD90 16 (Fleet complete…note that 12 additional MD90s will be equipped with Wi-Fi prior to joining the fleet)

We’re just about finished with the A319 fleet and the A320 fleet is more than halfway done. I’d love to hear from the folks in MSP, DTW and MEM (where most of the Airbus narrowbodies are based). Who’s surfed the Web on our Airbus fleet? How was the experience?

Chris B.
Sr. Product Manager, IFE