For many air travelers, flying has become an escape from the modern-day cyclone of phone calls, e-mail and instant text messages.
But some of the world's largest airlines are now rolling out technology that allows passengers to surf the Internet, check e-mail and beam text messages to the ground.
Lufthansa Airlines, the German carrier, begins flying a Boeing 747-400 on Wednesday between Frankfurt and Washington outfitted with Internet connectivity developed by the Boeing Co. Next month, British Airways plans to start a trial flight with the same technology between London and New York. Japan Airlines and SAS, the Scandinavian carrier, have signed contracts with Boeing to outfit nearly a dozen planes each to offer Internet service next year.
Later this month, Cathay Pacific, the airline based in Hong Kong, will offer e-mail service on 40 planes using technology developed by Tenzing Communications, a small company based in Seattle that is partly owned by Airbus, Boeing's rival.
Another system, co-developed by Tenzing and a company called ARINC, is already being used by Virgin Atlantic Airways, which has four planes that allow travelers to send brief text messages -- at US$2.50 a pop -- that are typed out on video screens on the backs of seats.
Virgin has a contract to upgrade by year's end its entire fleet with the technology, which has also been tested by Air Canada and Singapore Airlines.
Who needs it?
The big question is whether passengers -- especially business travelers -- will pay to plug into the digital grid at 9,000m.
Those airlines that use Boeing's service, called Connexion by Boeing, expect to charge passengers US$30 to US$35 a piece for unlimited Internet access. Tenzing executives said airlines carrying its e-mail system, which does not allow Internet surfing, were expected to charge US$10 to US$20.
"It all depends on the pricing," said Robert W. Mann, an airline consultant based in Port Washington, New York. "Anything airlines can do to empower business-traveler connectivity is good for the airlines. If they can do it while making a buck, so much the better. I think those things are doable and I think business travelers will like them."
Both Boeing and Airbus, the European consortium based in France, announced their intentions to provide Internet connectivity during the height of the dotcom bubble. The three largest airlines US said at the time that they were in contract talks with Connexion. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the slump in air traffic that followed, the airlines scrapped those plans.
The two aircraft makers nonetheless forged ahead with their projects, which are based on competing visions of what they think passengers want from Internet connectivity.
Boeing uses costly high-speed broadband transmission that allows Internet surfing because it says passengers want a full range of options. Tenzing and Airbus argue that most passengers just want an e-mail or messaging service.
Other companies also working on airborne connectivity are aiming their products elsewhere because they think the passenger market is too limited. Qualcomm has developed a broadband system that it hopes to sell to the federal government for security uses, said Jonas Neihardt, the company's vice president for federal government affairs.
Coffee, Ethernet or wireless, sir
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