front page story

The front page of today's Chicago Tribune gave some press to Aircell's latest deal with Delta.

A few of my thoughts -

• With all the problems with fuel costs and the attention to that and reducing flights, this announcement is even more significant. I would think the airline exec's would rather discuss how to charge more for baggage than a plan to add equipment to the cabin.
• Is front page coverage as big as it used to be ?? - probably not - there are so many news feeds now.
• This shows that these airlines related projects take longer than the marketers say. The Delta PR says "The airline expects to have more than 330 aircraft complete by summer 2009." That's going to be a tough schedule to keep. Does anyone remember the dates Aircell talked about back in 2006?
  
• The big news is that Delta committed to the whole fleet. It's the availability of this service that is important. That was one of Connexion's problems.
• One technical note - the graphic (info from Aircell apparently) mentions 3 antennas. Having two antennas on the belly should improve the ground connection and handoffs. The third antenna on top (probably optional) would most likely be for connecting at the gate.

One last thing - hopefully it works better than my comcast cable internet access, which is up and down more than an short haul airplane.



Here's the Chicago Tribune coverage.