Alaska Airlines

In-flight Wi-Fi on Alaska Airlines: free. For now.

Free Stuff, Wi-Fi

Alaska Airlines has been testing Row 44’s inflight Wi-Fi since late February on one Boeing 737-700 and plans to add the service on additional aircraft in the coming months.

In the meantime, travelers can use the in-flight Wi-Fi for free in exchange for answering a few survey questions about what they think of the service and how much they might be willing to pay.

So far, more than 2,100 passengers have used the service and completed a survey.  The findings? In a press release the airline says folks like having in-flight Wi-Fi.

No big surprise there.

Now comes the hard part: deciding what to charge for the service.

The airline says it plans to set a final price for the service later this year.  For now, they’re still testing the service, so enjoy it free while you can.

To find out which routes the Wi-Fi plane is flying each day, sign up for the airline’s Twitter feed.  And if you use the Wi-Fi, be sure to answer the “What would you pay?” question as honestly as you can.

And for an update on what’s going on with in-flight Wi-Fi in other parts of the airline system, please see my most recent  “Flying the Wi-Fi Skies” story on MSNBC.com.

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Free Wi-Fi coming to Oakland Airport next week (not SEA)

Free Stuff, Wi-Fi, ,

At last night’s charter meeting of SCOOT (Seattle Consortium of Online Travel) Seattle folks were jumping with joy when an Alaska Airlines’ rep announced that the airline would be picking up the Wi-Fi tab at Sea-Tac airport for the next few months.

Seems she may have just been swept up in the excitement of the moment, because today Tech Flash is reporting that, no, there will not be free Wi-Fi at SEA  for the next few months.  Instead, Alaska will be sponsoring free Wi-Fi at Oakland International Airport from April 13th through July 5, 2009.

laptop-wifi

Restless Mt. Redoubt nixes more flights

Cancellations, Weather,

Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt just won’t settle down.  Here’s a Twitter-ed update Alaska Airlines sent out Tuesday about the impact of volcano eruptions on flights:

Nighttime flts in/out of ANC canceled due to Mt. Redoubt. Check flt status in a.m. b/4 leaving home…

This is getting sort of old. Flights into and out of ANC has been canceled repeatedly over the past week.  In fact, as of Monday, Alaska Airlines had canceled more than 250 flights since March 22, affecting more than 10,000 passengers and leaving folks stuck in airports such as Seattle, Phoenix and, of course, Anchorage.

According to this KTUU.com report, those stranded passengers include the Alaska Aces hockey team, which had been scheduled to fly back from Phoenix but has decided to stay in the Lower 48 rather than risk getting stuck in Anchorage and not be able to play at Utah this weekend

Mt Redoubt

In the meantime, they’re getting some great photos!

Mt. Redoubt- March 30th. Photo by Heather Bleick; courtesy of the Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey.

Mt. Redoubt, tornadoes, snow nix flights

Cancellations, Safety, Weather,

Due to a mid-morning eruption (re-eruption?) of Mt. Redoubt, Alaska Airlines has suspended all flights into and out of Anchorage, at least until early Friday morning.

Volcano ash is serious stuff; it can limit visibility and ruin engines.  So the airline is taking no chances: 45 flights were canceled earlier this week due to previous eruptions from Mt. Redoubt, leaving more than 4,000 travelers stuck at the airport, at home, or somewhere they didn’t plan to be.

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If you’re scheduled to fly to or from Alaska, check in with alaskaair.com or 1-800-ALASKAAIR.  In the meantime, you might want to follow the mountain’s activities on the Alaska Volcano Observatory Web site.  It has photos, seismic graphs, airport flight status reports, and instructions for collecting ash fall – finally another use for those Ziploc bags!

(Photograph of Mt. Redoubt taken from Diamond Ridge near Homer, by Dennis Anderson. At 9:50 Am  March 26, 2009)

Folks are also ending up stuck at airports all across the country today due to snow in Denver and tornado activity in the south, so if you’re going anywhere, be sure to check in with your airline before you leave the house.

Can that ash-alert for flights to Alaska

Safety,

Alaska Airlines resumed flights in and out of Alaska today now that the ash from Mt. Redoubt has settled.

A big help: airplanes in Anchorage were wrapped in a protective plastic sealant overnight so that engines didn’t get damaged by abrasive ash particles.

No photos have been shared, so I have an image of an airplane wrapped in a giant plastic bag with a large twist-tie at the top. Or a huge zip-top bag, like the ones we stuff our toothpaste and face lotion into at the security checkpoint.

tsa-bag

Is that how they did it?

Flights canceled due to volcano

Cancellations, Weather, ,

Due to all the volcanic ash in the air caused by the eruption of Mt. Redoubt, Alaska Airlines today canceled flights in and out of the Alaska cities of Fairbanks, Bethel, Prudhoe Bay, Nome, Kotzebue and Barrow.

The airline is still operating flights south of Anchorage and throughout Southeast Alaska, but says that may change as all the routes get revaluated.

To find out about refunds and rebooking, be sure to contact the airline as soon as possible. You can also keep track of their updates on Twitter.

Sometimes, when airlines say a delay or cancellation is due to weather, we don’t believe it.  But I don’t think anyone can make a case against this ash-cancellation.

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Image courtesy Heather Bleick and Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey

In-flight Wi-Fi a swing-vote for road warriors?

Wi-Fi,

alaska-airline-wifi

Several airlines are testing in-flight Wi-Fi on a few planes and recently Southwest and Alaska airlines climbed on board with their satellite version of the service, courtesy of Row 44.

I tested the service out yesterday on Alaska Airline’s “Wi-Fi One” plane, flying back and forth between Seattle and Orange County.  There were two guys on board who were flying the plane specifically to check out the service, but otherwise the only way folks knew this was “the Wi-Fi plane” was if they noticed the big decal by the door (I admit, at first I didn’t) and if they read the big card in their seatback pocket.

Once folks did discover the service – which is complimentary during the test period – they used it, talked about it to their seatmates and across the aisles and, of course, sent e-mail messages: “Guess where I’m writing from.”

The service was a bit sluggish on the return trip, which got folks talking even more, but generally once travelers got connected, they seemed delighted to have this new amenity as an in-flight option.

Would frequent travelers choose to fly one airline over another based on the availability of Wi-Fi?  “It’s the right play. I would definitely lean towards a flight with Wi-Fi,” one passenger told me, “and I would have no problem paying a premium for the service.”

We’ll see: one of the questions in the survey passengers are asked to fill out when they sign-on to the in-flight Wi-Fi is “How much would you be willing to pay for this service?”

Alaska Airline’s Wi-Fi One

Wi-Fi

Testing out in-flight Wi-Fi on Alaska Airline’s Wi-Fi One.   Sign-on was easy, system is fast.  (Seems faster than my connection at the airport; could that be?).

Flight attendants seems excited about being on the test plane, but I’m surprised there was no announcement letting everyone know the service was available – for free.  There are big cards explaining the service in the seatback pockets – but not that many look in those pockets do they?

Already I’m wondering: As in-flight Wi-Fi becomes more common – and we have to pay for it – travelers will have another decision to make:  pay for Wi-Fi in the airport or pay for it on the plane.  Would you do both?

Happy Birthday, Alaska

Contests, Events,

The state of Alaska turns 50 today and to celebrate Alaska Airlines has announced the winner of its “Paint a Plane” contest.

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Sitka high school student Hannah Hamberg won the airline’s “Paint the Plane” contest with the above artwork, which will soon be seen on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-400.   The design includes a musher, a dog sled and other state icons.

In addition to getting her artwork on the plane, Hamberg, along with finalists from each grade level, won a trip to Disneyland Resort.  You can see the artwork of all the finalists in the “Paint the Plane” contest on-line.

Which one would you have voted for?

Alaska Airlines snacks donated to food banks

Food

File under: every bit helps.

So far this year, Seattle-based Alaska Airlines has donated more than 80,000 pounds of unused first-class snacks to food banks in Seattle and Portland.

According to an airline spokesperson, the donated food is collected from the snack baskets offered to first class passengers and from meals provided for flight attendants where the outside packaging has been opened but the contents have not.

The snacks include a rotating selection of such items as almond butter, dried fruit, salami, cheese spread, crackers, cookies, energy bars, salmon jerky and hummus.

Donating uneaten, but still-perfectly-good food items to area food banks is a great idea. Hopefully other airlines do the same. Especially now that food prices have gone up, donations to food banks have gone down, and more people than ever are turning to the food banks for help.