photo credit: lrargerich

I’m in route to Chicago to play golf with some buddies and brought along my trusty ASUS Eee PC 901 netbook (currently running Crunchbang Linux). We were supposed to fly out last night, but weather had us delayed until this morning. As we boarded the flight, I was surprised and curious to see a WiFi on Board sticker on the outside of the plane and on all the seats. I knew it wouldn’t be free, but I wanted to try it out anyway.

As we reached enough altitude, the stewardess said that we could now use approved electronic devices.  I pulled out my netbook (which fits great on seat tray even with the guy in front of me in a full reclined position) and was able to logon to the wifi in just a few minutes. GoGo in-flight provides the service, and it is faster than my DSL at home. The cost is $9.95 which for the convenience is worth it to me.

So far, just 25 minutes into my flight to Chicago, I’ve caught up on my email, am posting this article for you, checked Twitter and am listening to Pandora. Much more productive and entertaining than an in-flight movie or reading the SkyMall magazine. The next time you fly, take a look to see if your plane offers the service. I’m flying American Airlines today, but apparently more and more airlines are offering the service.

Have you already flown and used in-flight wifi? How did you like  it? Would you do it again?

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Tags: planes, travel, wifi

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am and is filed under Riding Shotgun with Rick. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.