Air Canada Tests Inflight Internet Service
Air Canada said it has begun trials of onboard Wi-Fi on select flights to Los Angeles from Toronto and Montreal using Aircell’s Gogo Inflight Internet service.
Initially the system will be available only while flights are over the continental US. AC said it plans eventually to extend it to other routes in North America, pointing out that development of appropriate infrastructure in Canada is required to allow air-to-ground wireless communications in that country.
The country’s biggest airline, working on a C$500 million (US$471.7 million) cost-cutting and revenue growth plan, also began charging extra fees to book specific seats with additional leg room, starting at C$14.
Trials of Gogo Internet service, on select Toronto-Los Angeles and Montreal-Los Angeles routes, will run until Jan. 29. Montreal-based Air Canada said it is the first Canadian carrier to offer the service.Passengers will pay US$9.95 per flight to use a laptop computer and US$7.95 to use a personal electronic device, such as a smartphone.
“Air Canada is the first Canadian airline to begin offering customers access to the Internet while they are flying,” Senior Director-Marketing Louise McKenven said, noting that passengers will have “access to standard power outlets” to plug in laptops.
At this point, the carrier cannot provide the service in Canada, in part because of the regulatory environment here, but also because the necessary infrastructure is not in place to support Wi-Fi on its flights.
Typically, signals are either beamed from satellites to aircraft or from the ground up, which is the sort that Aircell, and its Canadian partner, Sky-Surf Communications Inc., will provide to Air Canada once it’s ready.
Canada’s airlines are behind their international counterparts in offering Wi-Fi service to passengers because of this, with several carriers around the globe already offering the service, including American Airlines, Virgin America, British Airways and, early next year, Lufthansa.
Air Canada could conceivably be able to offer Wi-Fi to its passengers as early as next fall if the necessary regulations are in place.
In May, Ottawa-based Sky-Surf bought the rights to provide air-to-ground Internet service in Canada for $2.1-million during the federal government’s spectrum auction.It has since partnered with Aircell to offer seamless service across the U.S.-Canadian border, according to Raed Almasari, SkySurf’s owner.SkySurf is in the process of building the necessary cellphone towers, or co-locating with existing ones, to place the transmitters that will send signals to aircraft receivers, adding the network would likely be operational by the third quarter of next year, pending regulatory approval.
