If you are lucky enough to be travelling on flights BA175 to JFK or BA112 back to Heathrow before May 12, bring a laptop - as long as you're not in cattle class, of course. That's when the trial of the first onboard internet access system, Connexion by Boeing ( www.connexionbyboeing.com ), comes to an end.
It's all gone remarkably well, according to BA - though given that only around 100 people have tried it the speed and reliability of the connection probably hasn't been fully tested. Some were put off by the cost ($20, or around £13). Others hadn't brought their laptop. (Happily, by the way, Apple notebooks are supported: www.connexionbyboeing.com/main.cfm?nav=4 lists the system requirements.) Most users sent emails and logged on to their company intranet, and 78% said they would use it again.
BA isn't the only airline to have signed up to Connexion. Lufthansa's trial on the Frankfurt to Washington Dulles route, called FlyNet, was free in every cabin, wireless (the planes carried 42 laptops for travellers who didn't have their own) and taken up by around 40 or 50 people on each flight. According to the senior vice president of Lufthansa Technik, some middle-aged German industrialists with no internet experience had been "captivated".
Will it catch on? Why not? Even business travellers who might be expected to be sleeping in their flat bed want to try it. "Needless to say, I will be laptopped up, and will certainly try it if it is available," said David Turnbull, a project manager at a blue-chip management consultancy. "Even though I disapprove and despise it as an encroachment into the only bit of guaranteed quiet time the modern executive gets."
Virgin Atlantic are certainly hedging their bets. "We feel at $25/$35 per person per flight it is too expensive," a spokesperson told the Guardian. "We provide laptop power, which allows passengers to prepare emails if they want to work and then send them cost effectively when they land. We also offer a text-messaging service where passengers can send 160 characters to someone's mobile phone or email account for $2.50.
"We're happy with the low-key approach at the moment - it allows our business passengers to do a little work, send any urgent messages and then get on to the serious business of a G & T and the latest blockbuster."
But Lufthansa looks likely to install FlyNet across all its long-haul fleet, and BA may follow suit. Japan Airlines and SAS are interested too, though JAL says it won't arrive before 2004. It probably won't be free. Now the trial is over, Lufthansa ( www.lufthansa.co.uk ) intends to charge around €30-35 for each leg.
If BA doesn't wire up economy cabins, business travellers forced to fly economy will at least have a decent excuse to ask their bosses for an upgrade.
