HIGH-TECH TRAVELER
Free Wi-Fi in the Air and the Airport:
- It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and that means free Wi-Fi thanks to the folks at Google. The 800-pound gorilla of search engines will sponsor free Wi-Fi at more than 47 airports around the country until January 15. Google will also sponsor free in-flight on Virgin America flights. You can find all of the details here: http://www.freeholidaywifi.com
- Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport now offers free Wi-Fi service, but you’ll have to present your boarding pass at an airline ticket counter to get a user name and password. The airport already has 126 computer kiosks that offer free Internet access.
- AirTran Airways cut the price of its in-flight Wi-Fi by offering two-for-one ratesuntil the end of the year. All of the airline’s fleet of Boeing 717 and 737 aircraft are wired with GoGo Inflight.
- Speaking of GoGo, it is struggling to find a market for the service it offers on AirTran, American, Delta and Virgin America flights. So it has cut the price of its 30-day pass to $24.95. That’s a 50 percent reduction.
On-the-Road Intelligence to Help You Travel Smarter:
- Say goodbye to Mokulele, an inter-island Hawaiian carrier mostly owned by Republic, which also owns Frontier Airlines, Midwest Airlines and a slew of regional airlines. Republic is essentially handing over its service to go!, an inter-island carrier owned by Mesa Airlines.
- The Federal Aviation Administration has fined United Airlines and US Airways a total of $9.2 million for safety-related violations. United was fined $3.8 million for operating a Boeing 737 on more than 200 flights with towels, instead of protective caps, covering an oil sump pump compartment inside an engine. US Airways was fined $5.4 million for operating eight aircraft on 1,647 flights even though the planes were not property inspected.
- Surprise! The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security says that the Transportation Security Administration program to help travelers get off no-fly lists doesn’t work. The TRIP plan was supposed to aid travelers who had wrongly been placedon watch, no-fly lists and other security lists. “Redress-seekers generally do not benefit from their participation in TRIP,” the inspector general said.
- Air France and KLM have joined most of the other transatlantic carriers and now charge coach passengers $50 for checking a second bag.
Related Orbitz resources:
Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2009 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.
