This tends to be a friendly website and it is rare that I spark controversy on iPhone J.D., but I seem to do so whenever I mention Gogo, the service that lets you access the Internet while you are on many airlines. While I consider the service somewhat overpriced (currently $40/month or $13/24 hours) and I don’t use it all the time when I travel, it is often very useful. For example, instead of facing dozens of new e-mails that I need to wade through when my plane lands, Gogo lets me work through those e-mails when I am stuck on the plane and even deal with the urgent e-mails immediately.
I first discussed Gogo on iPhone J.D. in 2009, and that original post continues to get comments from people griping about how slow the service is. My follow-up post from 2011 has similar comments, including one reader who suggests that the service should instead be called “NoNo.”
Every once in a while, Gogo offers significant discounts, and around the holidays they sometimes offer free service sponsored by a third party. I mention Gogo today because I see that through the end of June, you can use Gogo for free for 15 minutes on any Delta flight. No promotional code is required.
15 minutes is not very long, but is enough to check your e-mail and respond to a few messages during your flight.
If you are looking for more deals after this one ends, keep an eye on the Gogo blog, which recently moved to this new location. And for a good recent article on in-flight WiFi, check out this article by Rocky Agrawal for VentureBeat which notes that over 25% of the passengers on Virgin America cross-country flights are using Gogo. As Agrawal points out, for all of Gogo’s flaws, he sees better service on Gogo at 30,000 feet than he often does at SFO. Swap “ATL” for “SFO” and I can say the same thing.
Whenever I fly, I like to sit back and relax. The last thing I want to do is e-mail a client, but sometimes it’s necessary.