Two will enter, one will leave. Some will have Wi-Fi.
United has announced today that Continental intends to add Wi-Fi to 200 of their Boeing 737 and 757 aircraft. It is not officially, official that this will happen, but I would imagine it will go through.
If you get confused on who and what United and Continental Airlines are right now, you are not alone. Although they will be merging, they are still two separate airlines. This gets more confusing since they have started to re-paint planes and doing joint announcements.
Add to the confusion that currently, United flies fourteen aircraft with Wi-Fi already on their Premium Service (PS). 13 of those aircraft are using Go-Go Inflight Wi-Fi and one is using Row 44. The Continental aircraft will be using LiveTV’s ViaSat-1 satellite internet. Those are a lot of different providers and I would imagine as the merger settles down, the new United will be looking at which service package they would want to provide to the entire fleet. Since the new United has so many international destinations, it makes sense for them to look at using a satellite provider like Row44 or LiveTV.
Becoming the world’s largest airline is not easy. There are a lot of things that still need to be dealt with to make sure the new United has a consistent brand.Time is of the essence since the new United doesn’t want to alienate loyal customers for both airlines during the transition.
To learn a bit more, check out my story on AOL Travel News.
I’m not so confused as to the complexities of the merger, I’m more confused as to why UA would fly a single PS 757 with Row44 and the rest with Gogo? Was one a test a/c or something and then they decided to go with Gogo?
Yes, I am guessing they are trying out the multiple systems to see which one they would want to implement fleet-wide. Or it could be possible to have the tower-based Go-Go for the domestic fleet and Row44 or LiveTV for international.
David