jspira

According to United, it now operates more long-haul aircraft with satellite-based in-flight Internet than any other U.S. carrier - and it today announced it now has 100 planes with a satellite-based system.


United Hits Milestone in Sat-based In-flight Wi-Fi with 100th Plane

WineCountryUA

UA claimed 103 (including ? the non-sat PS) as of 30 Sept on their UA WiFi tracking site

auggie doggie

Not sure why they think they are leading here....

Southwest operates with Row44 satellite WIFI and have their entire 737-700 and 737-800 fleet equipped with it. Over 400 planes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwe..._entertainment

Pretty poor reporting on their part. If anything, United is far behind the competition with regard to getting WIFI installed.

jspira

I think it's because of the long-haul aspect and I believe it is correct:

I left out "long-haul" in my post above but I've corrected it to match what is in the news story

Darlox

Wow - not often you see factually-incorrect press releases...

But seriously, my guess is that they were trying to spin this as applying to global airlines, and drawing a distinction between satellite-based and Gogo.

Long-haul would apply to Southwest as well... just not international long-haul.

Some media hack in Chicago got hold of that list of talking points, and failed to include the specific information that would have made this narrowly accurate, just shooting it out there as a "we're the best" release. Meh.

tom911

Doesn't UA have around 700 mainline aircraft? The 100 is a good start but looks like a long road ahead to finish up.

jspira

Happens multiple times a day. Most news releases are written by committee and errors creep in. The same can be said for the editing process at any small or large newspaper or magazine. It's not really as much sloppy work as it is technology allowing things to go unnoticed in many cases.

At the rate of 30 per month, which is a pretty good clip, that's 360 a year. United did say it expects to have 200 completed by year-end.

Darlox

My apologies for not including a sarcasm-alert indicator on that line.

LilAbner

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that --- Long-haul flights are journeys typically made by wide-body aircraft, such as Boeing 767, Boeing 777, Airbus A340, Airbus A380 or Boeing 747. They involve long distances typically requiring over six and a half hours to cover, and are often non-stop flights.

jspira

And my apologies for not seeing it - since I deal with news releases on the receiving end a lot (we get about 2,000 a day), I guess it's a topic I take all too seriously.

auggie doggie

I know I'm going to sound sarcastic here....but are they really doing 30 per month? I honestly don't think it's that fast.

jspira

I would agree roughly with the distance/time factor but not necessarily with the wide-body aspect as some airlines are flying narrowbodies such as 757s on some long-haul route as well.

In general, I don't think of Southwest as having long-haul flights but I might be unaware of a few.

I'm guessing the rate has something to do with how many a/c United can have out of service at any point in time (on a scheduled basis).

It didn't really sound sarcastic though. It's a good question.

Darlox

Well... according to Wikipedia, you're correct!

I learned something today! Honestly had no idea that those terms were formally defined, in quantifiable terms. However, in my defense, they seem to be so broadly mis-used in news reporting and other sources, that I can forgive myself for being so un-informed!

Still, assuming that equipment type is NOT a strict requirement by the Wikipedia definition, Southwest would still technically qualify as a long-haul carrier because of their BWI-LAX service, which is 6:10 scheduled flight time. We're arguing semantics, at this point, though...

bcj1949

For me this is great news. WIFI over the ocean is a big deal. AA has it on their new 777W's. For UA to be pushing ahead fast is great news. ^

Duke787

Just to be clear as far as I can tell despite them touting having the most long-haul WiFi of any US airline it still is a rather pathetic number (which also means it's a pathetic number for DL, AA, and US). The bulk of those 100 planes that are currently equipped with WiFi are a319s and a320s which (hopefully) won't ever be caught doing TATL and the 757s that have them are PS flights which also aren't ever doing TATL. In fact as far as I can tell from their website the only real long-haul aircraft with WiFi are the 13 747s that have it, which may be more than any other US airline, but they certainly don't have a robust offering on the 757s, 767s, and 777s that fly the bulk of TATL flights. It all depends what they are equipping in the next few months but I would say right now your chances of getting TATL WiFi especially from the East Coast seem to be close to 0

http://www.united.com/web/en-us/cont...i/default.aspx