Technology wins FAA approvals

The Federal Aviation Administration has given its approval to two critical aspects of a new air-to-ground in-flight mobile broadband service operated by Aircell LLC. The vendor is planning to start offering the service this year on select flights of American Airlines and Virgin America. The company said it has received approval to install and operate its network on Boeing 767-200 aircraft – like those operated by American in the transcontinental market – as well as approval for the manufacture of its hardware. Although it is currently working only with American and Virgin America, the company said its plant in Illinois has enough manufacturing capacity “to accommodate rapid service introduction to all future partners as well.” The service would initially be introduced on American’s JFK-Los Angeles, JFK-San Francisco and JFK-Miami routes, although “we now have the ability to rapidly expand to the rest of American’s 767-200 fleet,” an Aircell spokesman said. The company said other routes to be “coming soon” include LAX-Washington Dulles, San Francisco-Seattle, LAX-Seattle and San Diego-San Francisco. The Aircell service will let passengers with WiFi-equipped laptops and other devices connect to the Internet, check e-mail, and access corporate networks. “Business aircraft operators will soon be offered a similar feature set,” Aircell said. The company’s Gogo Inflight Internet also provides users with access to the Wall Street Journal Online. For more information about the service, and to sign up for alerts about its availability and expansion route-by-route, go to www.gogoinflight.com.