Surfing Delta’s WI-FI with Go Go In-flight

by Christine Ka’aloa

Just a quick note to say- I am on a flight back home to Hawaii, blogging and surfing the internet from airwaves of 50,000 ft (or higher) while testing out Delta‘s WIFI service.

Yesterday I had won a contest at The Gadling for a free Go Go in-flight session and today, upon arriving at the Delta gate of my flight, they were passing out free Go Go sessions for my flight as well! What luck! How GRRReat is that?

For the month of December, the Wi-Fi service Go Go In-flight is offering a deal for a month’s unlimited usage for only $24.95 (the normal price will be $50). Not bad if you’ll be traveling a lot this month or even just 3 times on either Air Tran, Air Canada, American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta or Virgin. A single flight session costs $12.95 for 3hrs+ and there are lower prices for sessions ranging from 1-3 hours. Alternately, there is also a Mobile Flight Pass if you want to access the internet from your phone.

How’s the service? I like it okay for what it is in surfing sky WiFi. The connection speed is solid- it certainly feels quicker than ground access when loading Facebook, news and media pages;  yet, it isn’t perfect – it’s currently struggling with my WordPress account and log-ins and this eats up battery time.  The airplane hasn’t yet blown up from all the laptop passengers taking advantage of this free air-surfing promotion, so I guess for now I’ll give it a B+ rating, noting there’s room for improvement.  The price (when not Free) is moderate, yet can actually be a bit cheaper than the Delta food/snacks being sold. So think twice as to the priority of where you want your credit card charges to go.

Unfortunately, I realize that with the privilege, comes the slight paranoia of keeping that vigilant eye on the laptop battery usage. At home I can surf the internet, research and write for hours but in the air, I’m limited to my battery charge, which isn’t enough to last a 2-3 hour flight let alone a 5 hour one. I wonder how long will it be before airlines install plug outlets for each seat? Only time will tell…

Until,

Christine