Airlines to pilot in-flight broadband

In-flight broadband could be on its way for air passengers in the UK after American Airlines and Virgin America announced plans to introduce the system in the US, reports say.

Tech news blog C-Net reports that the airlines have installed systems from Aircell, which uses 92 ground antennas and onboard Wi-Fi routers to send signals to passengers on some of their planes. They will be used on flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to New York and Miami.

American Airlines initially plans to kit out 15 of its Boeing 767s with the broadband systems, the site says, with plans to eventually roll it out to 500 planes. It also cites GigaOm as saying Virgin will equip its entire fleet with the broadband service, which will be called Gogo.

The move follows a "Wi-Fi test flight" between San Francisco and New York in December 2007 by the airline JetBlue.

However, C-Net says, the wider adoption of in-flight broadband could largely rest on how expensive it is to use and the speed of service once it has been launched.

According to the British Airports Authority, 143.8 million passengers passed through its airports in 2006/07.