November 2007

The last time I flew, I flew Southwest. Up until recently this mandated a certain process: check in online (which I hate), get in the best boarding group possible, show up early, stand (sit) in line, board plane.

But, and this is probably not news to many of you, Southwest recently announced that if you feel like it, you can up the cost of your ticket, and get a guaranteed spot in the line to board the plane (you can also get the same treatment if you fly 16 or more round trips in one year):

NEW YORK, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N: Quote, Profile, Research) is now courting frequent business travelers by allowing them to pay a higher fare to board planes first, the company said on Thursday.

The “Business Select” class represents another change to Southwest’s policy of not assigning seats.

This works out well for those with extra cash. I can’t decide if that bugs me or not. I suppose I’ll find out the next time I fly in group A, but end up boarding behind 30 other people.

For your amusement today: the reason I can’t wait to fly Virgin American.

I’m sure many of you have seen this photo of the new Dreamliner interior floating around the internet. It’s definitely one of those succulent pictures that just speaks for itself.

But as cool and futuristic as that interior looks, it’s not going to help me much unless there are outlets in every seat where I can charge my laptop. Battery technology keeps getting better and better, which is great because now I can really make use of a four hour plane flight, but anything much longer than that and I’m in trouble.

I don’t doubt that Boeing is smart enough to throw outlets onto their newest dream plane. In fact, I haven’t even Googled to see if they’re in the specs. OK, that’s a little irresponsible, so hang on… a cursory Google search in fact turns up that Airbus has power outlets in every seat on their A380, but nothing mentioned about power outlets on the dreamliner.

That’s disappointing. Come on people. This is like having an audio jack in a car. Oh wait, nobody does that, either.

Just about every airport I end up in has at least one or two Wi-Fi networks available in the concourse. They usually cost between $5 and $7 dollars for 24 hours of access (I’m there for 30-45 minutes), and $20/month for unlimited access. About half the time it’s some sort of T-mobile hotspot, which is pretty good, but at least half the time the network is provided by a company named after some sort of exotic fruit.

Free Wi-Fi is what we all want. I’m sure that eventually that’s where we’ll end up. It’ll just be expected airport infrastructure.

But in the meantime, I don’t have a problem with paying for Wi-Fi access. It’s a service provided by a company, and I don’t want some weird frame in my window shoving ads down my face just so they can cover their costs. I’d pay somewhere between $10 and $20 a month if it meant I could get online at any airport in the country.

The problem is that nothing is everywhere. If I wanted to have Wi-Fi at every airport I might end up in (which I do), I’d probably have to subscribe to three or four different providers, at the least, and several of them would overlap in places. Boy does that sound like wasted money.

Someone should really make an effort to be everywhere. Because the value just isn’t there if you cover 60% of the airports.