Travel and Hotel News

Virgin America Introduces Wi-Fi on All Flights

Virgin America, the California-based carrier and part of Richard Branson’s airline empire, announced recently that it has established itself as the first and only airline to offer in-flight Internet service on every scheduled flight.

Passengers on any of Virgin America’s 100 daily flights have the option to surf the web or check their email all from the comfort of their seats at over 30,000 feet.  With power outlets at every Virgin America seat, Gogo® has turned planes into Wi-Fi hotspots and home offices in the air for the millions of passengers that travel on their routes each year.

Although Virgin America does not typically allow Voice-Over-IP (VoIP) products like Skype video call in-flight due to noise concerns, passengers can currently use the Gogo service to Skype via the instant message feature, in addition to tweeting, updating Facebook pages and any of the numerous other ways the web is manipulated to keep people connected. The introduction of the Gogo service across the airline’s network makes Virgin America the first and only airline to offer consumers in-flight Wi-Fi on every flight, regardless of route, aircraft type, or flight time.

The Gogo service is available for $12.95 for daytime flights of over three hours, $9.95 for daytime flights of less than three hours, $5.95 on red-eye flights and $7.95 for handheld devices.

For more information, please visit www.virginamerica.com

How does it work? Read Alain Gayot's blog on the inaugural Wi-Fi flight.

Hyatt Hotels Hop on Twitter

Hyatt Hotels is on the cutting-edge with the unveiling of HyattConcierge, a dedicated concierge service allowing guests and the general public to ask questions via Twitter before, during and after their hotel stays.

Earlier this month, Hyatt hotels launched the service as a tech-savvy customer service tool that allows guests—and actually, anyone who uses Twitter—to pose questions, similar to what guests might ask the concierge in the hotel lobby.

With a quick tweet you can ask about restaurant recommendations, tourist attractions and general advice on what to do in a particular city. Customers can also tweet their concerns, or requests involving any property at any time because HyattConcierge is staffed around the world with specially trained reservations center staffers.

The launch of HyattConcierge comes at a time when hotel chains are struggling with how to best harness Twitter to make consumers respond. So far, the industry is primarily using Twitter to promote vacation deals and general hotel announcements. Feel free to test the service and give us any feedback.

To see the site, visit www.twitter.com/HyattConcierge