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March 31, 2008

In the Air: United, V Australia, Jazeera

By Glenn Fleishman

United Airlines switches its lounge Wi-Fi to an amenity: Service in the airline’s 27 Red Carpet Clubs and 5 International First Class lounges is now free, still provided by T-Mobile. They join another long-time T-Mobile customer, American Airlines, in going free to lounge members and most other qualified lounge users; it’s $50 for a one-time club pass, which includes free Wi-Fi.

Virgin Blue’s V Australia airline will offer mobile calling, texting with factory-installed system: Boeing will install the Panasonic/Aeromobile system offered under the Panasonic brand eXPhone. All 777-300ERs in the long-haul fleet will feature the option, although some regulatory issues still need to be settled. V Australia service will launch in December between Sydney and Los Angeles.

Jazeera Airways adds OnAir mobile calling, texting: The Kuwait/Dubai airline will upgrade its six Airbus A320 planes; 34 more A320s are on order, which will have the gear installed during manufacture. Service will launch later this year. This article notes a detail I’ve seen elsewhere: up to 12 voice calls can be carried at the same time. That’s using the older Inmarsat system that was supposed to be superceded a couple of years ago by one with eight times the bandwidth. That’s now slated for 2009.

Posted by Glennf at March 31, 2008 4:09 PM

Categories: Air Travel

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