Gogo Adds Day Pass, Short Hop, Monthly Prices for In-Flight Broadband

Gogo goes baroque with additional pricing options on its Internet offering: Aircell has long told me that it expected to have a variety of pricing options, including subscriptions, for its in-flight Internet service, Gogo. The firm added three new options today, although availability varies by airline.

For short hops, about 1.5 hours or less, Gogo now charges $6 on all its affiliated airlines (American, AirTran, Delta, and Virgin America); previously, you would have paid the $10 3-hour-or-shorter fee. Flight of more than 3 hours remain priced at $13.

Gogo has also added a 24-Hour Pass, allowing multiple sessions during that period for fliers making multiple hops or a roundtrip. Initially, this option is only available for Delta and AirTran.

Finally, a 30-Day Pass runs just $50, and works on a single airline; only American has opted out of this, possibly because it doesn't yet have enough planes unwired to make it something that they want to offer to customers.

$50 for someone who takes a flight a week starts to approach a very reasonable deal. Next, Aircell needs to get corporate rates and iPass/Boingo roaming rates to tie in a larger universe of customers that are heavy users, but also expect something better than what everyone else gets because of ease of billing and collection.

AirTran Finishes Internet Install