29 March 2012 – “Technology can be offered as a perk, for example providing passengers in Business with free tablets,” Raymond Kollau says. 
22 March 2012 – “Passengers can look forward to a far more personalized experience in the future,” says airlinetrends.com’s Raymond Kollau. 
3 Feb. 2012 – “The concept makes perfect sense as people like to surround themselves with like-minded persons,” said Raymond Kollau. 
24 July 2011 – No major U.S. carrier offers free food on domestic flights anymore, says Raymond Kollau. 
4 May 2011 – “This is an example of experiential marketing,” Raymond Kollau said. 
10 March 2011 – “This is a novel way to pass some of the risk in fuel cost to customers,” Raymond Kollau said. 
More free sponsored inflight Wi-Fi in the United States
25 March 2010 | During the 2009 U.S holiday season several brands teamed up with airlines to provide passengers with free Gogo inflight Wi-Fi, ranging from one week to two months. On a similar note, two new Wi-Fi sponsorships have just been announced.
American Express is sponsoring free Gogo Internet on all 136 AirTran aircraft from March 13 through March 27. With the free Wi-Fi offer both companies are promoting their new ‘Open Savings’ partnership, which gives passengers that book an AirTran flight with an American Express business credit card a 5 percent discount. Gogo has posted a nice video which shows how passengers are reacting to the campaign.
Owners of T-Mobile USA’s new HTC HD2 smartphone will receive free Gogo inflight Internet for six months from registration or until June 30, 2011, whichever comes first. The service comes pre-installed on the smartphone. According to Aircell, 30 percent of Gogo customers access the Web from a PDA or smartphone inflight.
Update 3 May 2010: Besides providing buyers of its HTC HD2 smartphone free inflight Wi-Fi on any aircraft equipped with Aircell’s Gogo, T-Mobile has also followed American Express as the latest brand to partner with AirTran to provide any passenger on AirTran flights with complimentary inflight Wi-Fi for two weeks from May 10 to May 23.
Update 20 May 2010: Alaska Airlines on May 18 launched Gogo’s inflight Wi-Fi service on six Boeing 737-800 aircraft and plans to expand the service to its entire fleet by the end of 2010. To celebrate the launch and make passengers familiar with the new service, the airline has partnered with Visa to offer passengers inflight Wi-Fi free of charge for 2.5 months through July 31, 2010.
About Raymond KollauFounder of airlinetrends.com. Spends his day monitoring the global aviation industry for commercial innovations in response to changing consumer behaviour. Besides working with clients in the airline industry, Raymond also has a part-time position as consumer trends analyst at leading consumer trends agency trendwatching.com.
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