Roundup: Virgin America launching in-flight Wi-Fi; Maria Esther Castillo gets in-flight duct tape; new Delta fees

Good morning, travelers!

Airline news | More great in-flight Wi-Fi news for you — Virgin America, voted “Best Domestic Airline” in Condé Nast Traveler’s 2008 Readers’ Choice Awards, is set to launch its Gogo In-flight Internet service. Virgin is doing a beta flight on Nov. 22, not just with Wi-Fi,  but the first ever air-to-ground video-stream. That’s right, they’ve teamed up with YouTube Live to stream their big party in the sky to everyone. Jaunted has the scoop on what this means for potential  users of the service. In a nutshell, no Skype or VoIP because of bandwidth but also no editing of the Wi-Fi content. The price is reasonable — $10,  or $13 for long flights. Virgin America will have the Wi-Fi available fleet-wide by Q2 in 2009.

Did you know that airlines carried duct tape? United Airlines had to restrain an unruly passenger on a flight between Puerto Rico to Chicago. Flight 645 eventually made a detour to land in Charlotte, North Carolina after Maria Esther Castillo, 45, struck a flight attendant and pulled on a blind passenger’s hair after falling on them. Attendants used the duct tape as a restraint after ankle cuffs did not work. Castillo is due in court today for resisting arrest and interfering with the operations of a flight crew. Read: FBI: Airline passenger restrained with duct tape

Business travel | Hey Delta frequent fliers – just in case you were so focused on election results, celebrations or mourning Wednesday — note that some fees have changed for you. But it’s not all bad news, especially for those who can’t seem to pack light. Yes, Delta is adding a fee for the first checked bag ($15) — but if you check two bags, the new cost is actually cheaper than the cost of the original second checked bag fee. Now the total price for two bags is $40 instead of $50 for just the second. Read: Delta Air Lines adds fee for first checked bag

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

[Photo: virginamerica.com]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 8:31 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, Good Morning, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.