US Airways has taken a more cautious approach towards the installation of inflight Internet as it evaluates performance, but it appears that the airline may be looking to get more serious. It is now considering expanding inflight Internet to its A319 and A320 aircraft.
US Airways first introduced inflight Internet with Gogo in early 2010 on its A321 fleet. By June 2010, the entire fleet had been outfitted.
The rationale for outfitting those particular aircraft was simple. The A321s fly the longest missions in the domestic US Airways fleet, so the expectation was that these aircraft would see the highest usage. The results to date have been far from impressive. At the airline’s April media day, US Airways President Scott Kirby said usage rates had been below 5 percent. To put that in perspective, he claimed that 20 percent usage was required for breakeven.
Despite the low usage rates, US Airways has moved forward with expansion of inflight Internet onboard its fleet. It will be taking delivery of 12 more A321s later this year and all will have Internet installed. The bigger news, however, is that the airline is also now looking at adding Internet to the A319 and A320 fleets. This would leave only the rapidly shrinking fleet of 737s and the 15 Embraer 190s in the mainline fleet without internet.
This was discussed recently in an employee communication:
Q. Will we expand Wi-Fi to aircraft other than our A321s?
A. While we don’t have anything official to announce, we are in negotiations with two vendors to add Wi-Fi to our A319 and A320 aircraft at some point in the near future. This is subject to change, but we’ll be sure to share any announcements with employees.
Though it’s early in the process, the simple fact that the airline is considering adding Internet with such abysmal usage rates shows the airline’s thinking about the future strategic importance of having Internet available for customers.
At that same media day, Kirby alluded to this thinking by noting that he expected Internet would eventually become a standard amenity for airlines. With Alaska, Delta, Southwest/AirTran, and Virgin America all committed to installing Internet on their entire domestic jet fleets (jets with more than 50 seats), the industry does seem to be heading in that direction.
The bigger questions is – how will the Internet be delivered to aircraft? Gogo is the current leader in the US, but other providers are making inroads. Row 44 has the Southwest contract (though it remains to be seen what will happen after the AirTran integration), and LiveTV has signed up JetBlue and the legacy Continental fleet for future Ka-band Internet plans beginning as early as next year.
While it’s safe to assume that US Airways would continue to be in talks with its current provider, Gogo, it remains to be seen who the other provider might be. No timeline has been given for a decision on installing wireless Internet on the fleet at this time.
August 21, 2011 at 6:58 pm
The 5 percent utilization rate may have something to do with the number of seats where a laptop can be opened comfortably without incursion from the seat in front of the using passenger.
November 9, 2011 at 8:07 am
I was on a couple of US Airways A321 flights last week and I don’t think that argument holds water. I was able to put my 17″ MacBook Pro on the tray table, and while a bit of it came over the edge, there was plenty of room left and it didn’t come anywhere near pressing up on my gut.