The excellent Virgin America airlines is working to get even better. Stick a fork in Delta, Virgin America is pleasing the nation. Long the technological leader (not long per se, but for its lifespan of having a wingspan), Virgin America will now be offering free WiFi for flyers on the airline.
Google has opted to foot the bill for fleet wide free WiFi between November 10th, 2009, and January 15th, 2010. That covers the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. More plainly, a great swath of the US travel schedule.
This partnership is a win-win for both companies, Google gets exposure on the cheap to the trendiest of travelers, and Virgin America gets paid for giving away a service for free. Think of the masses that perhaps would have balked at the regular $13 rate, found it free, used it once, and could never go back to WiFi-less travel. The upsell if perfect.
You can read the announcement from Google here, or view the website that they set up about the promotion here.
On a personal note, Virgin America still does not fly out of Chicago. Let me make a public plea for the airline to come to the Midway airport. We want to fly on your beautiful, new, well lit, and now WiFi blanketed planes.
Sweet! I just got the email about this from Virgin America and wanted to read about it to make sure it was true. My flight is from FLL to LAX (~6 hours) in late December.
hoping that they will make this a permanent thing after the holidays. at least for now, i am feeling happy enough to be accept the poetic nature of this free wifi – http://web-poet.com/2009/10/19/virgin-america-google/