Big news in inflight Internet - United Airlines and Aircell ink deal

Great news from the world of inflight Internet access - United Airlines just committed to adding the Aircell Gogo broadband service to their fleet.

The first planes to benefit from the service are the 13 Boeing 757's that operate on the United Airlines p.s. routes, from New York JFK to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

United Airlines is the fifth airline to sign a deal with Aircell. Previously American Airlines, Delta, Virgin America and Air Canada decided to offer the service to their passengers, and several of these airlines are already in fairly advanced stages of rolling things out to their entire fleet.

The Aircell Gogo service will be available on these United Airlines planes in the second half of 2009. Access is just $12.95 for the duration of the flight, which is a real bargain considering p.s. flights are all trans-continental.

Once the service comes to other routes, passengers on shorter trips can access the service for $9.95 if their flight is under 3 hours.

We took the Gogo service for a spin on Virgin America back in November, and I was very impressed with the speed, and ease of use. As someone who lives in a United hub city, a fleetwide rollout can't come fast enough for me.

The addition of United Airlines means that Aircell has managed to sign contracts with most of the major carriers in the US, an amazing achievement in just 12 months.

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