American has decided to ditch its existing portable inflight entertainment system and go with the cooler Samsung Galaxy tablet instead. This may only be in places where American has a portable system today, but it’s a big upgrade. Now for the question . . . how many will get stolen on every flight? Any guesses?

American announced this week that it would begin testing streaming video with wifi-provider GoGo on a couple of airplanes, and it will expand wifi to the whole domestic fleet. This is an exciting development, but it’s really just the beginning.

It was just a couple weeks ago that I wrote a column for CNN saying that the future of inflight entertainment might very well be a power outlet and a wifi connection. That’s almost exactly what American is angling for here. (At least, I hope the power outlet is part of the equation eventually.)

The way this works is simple. I spoke with Eric Lemond, GoGo’s VP of Product and Platform Management to get the full details. GoGo has a big server on the airplane with a ton of storage. (I’m told they could store 1,000 movies with what they have now.) Travelers will pop open their laptops and connect to the wireless network just as they would to go online. Then, each traveler can open up the browser to decide whether to purchase internet or whether to purchase the content stored on the airplane. American hasn’t announced pricing yet, so we don’t know what that will look like, but I imagine it will be less expensive than going online.

The initial plan is to have a library of movies and television available for people to stream. The streaming is done in your browser via Flash. You need to download a security plugin (that’s stored on the airplane) to prevent theft but that’s quick and then you’re ready to go. As of now, only laptops are supported. Mobile phone support is on the road map, but I wasn’t given a timeline. With the increasing use of mobiles, that needs to speed up quickly.

One of the biggest problems I see is that in order to watch the movie, you have to be connected to the internet for the payment to process. So if you’re on a flight from, say, Honolulu to LA, then you’re out of luck because there’s no internet access, even at the beginning. If, however, you’re going from, oh, Dallas to San Jose, Costa Rica, then you should have enough internet time at the beginning of the flight to buy the movie and watch it. Eric says that there is a roadmap that would allow people to eventually watch movies without that initial internet connection, but that’s down the line. You can, however, continue to watch a movie on the ground for a certain period of time after your flight, if you’re unable to finish it on the airplane. That’s a nice little bonus.

The other concern, of course, is around the quality of the streaming. If I get a “buffering” message every couple minutes, then this will fail. Eric says that GoGo has that under control. Since the streaming is all happening on the airplane and doesn’t require the air-to-ground connection, it’s a lot easier to make it work. Now, if 150 people all decided to watch the same movie within 5 minutes of each other, then performance might be degraded, but Eric says they can use engineering as necessary to increase capacity as demand grows.

Of course, for this to be worthwhile, American needs to commit to wifi instead of half-committing as it’s done so far. That is changing with this announcement. Today, American has wifi on its fleet of 767-200s that fly between the west coast and east coast. Two of those airplanes will be the ones doing the streaming test. American also has wifi on 150 of its MD-80s and will install it on 50 more. (That will leave less than 50 without wifi, but those will be retired sooner rather than later.)

Today, only 43 of the airline’s 737-800s have wifi, and that’s only about a third of the fleet. I asked American when the 737 fleet would be done, and I was given PR-speak: “American continues to install Wi-Fi service on 737-800 aircraft and the entire fleet is expected to be outfitted overtime.” Um, ok. These installs take very little time at all, so I have no clue why this is taking so long and why an estimate on when the fleet will be done is unavailable.

But the biggest issue for American has been the lack of wifi on the 757 fleet. Now, the 93 757s used for domestic flights (the rest do international like east coast to Europe) will get wifi as well. That should be done by the end of 2012.

The end result is that the entire mainline domestic fleet will have wifi. Unlike Delta, American has no plans to install wifi on its large regional jets (or its small regional jets, for that matter). And international, of course, will continue to not have wifi because GoGo is ground-based.

But as I said, this is just the start. GoGo says that there is the ability to have gaming, audio, and other rich media on the server, so it’s just a matter of figuring out what the airlines want to offer. This definitely seems like the smart way forward to me. Of course, this again makes powerports even more important. When are we gonna hear an announcement about full 110V power throughout the airplane, American? Those cigarette lighter ports in some rows just don’t cut it.

In-flight entertainment following the times – CNN Out of the Office
I remain convinced that one of these days, inflight entertainment will simply be internet and power. The airlines could just provide content if they so chose.

In the Trenches: Making a Pricing Change the Right Way – Intuit Small Business Blog
We’re looking at some pricing changes for Cranky Concierge, and I’m kicking the effort off this week.

Earlier this week, United announced that it will finally put wifi onboard about 200 of its airplanes. You would think that this would finally resolve the wifi question at the new world’s largest airline, but it doesn’t. I imagine this was just a great deal that they couldn’t pass up.

The announcement said that United had signed a letter of intent with LiveTV to put wifi onboard more than 200 Continental airplanes. This deal is for Ka band satellite, the super fancy, cheap, and fast version of satellite internet that JetBlue said it would install last year, though it’s not yet operational anywhere. In the past, neither United nor Continental had seen it worthwhile to put internet onboard except on United’s tiny fleet of p.s. airplanes that fly between JFK and both LA and San Francisco. So what’s changed?

Continental signed up long ago to put LiveTV on most of its domestic fleet. There are already 165 airplanes with this onboard and another 53 scheduled to get it. That means a total of 218 airplanes, or the “more than 200″ that will get wifi per the announcement. I assume every airplane with LiveTV will end up with wifi as part of this deal.

So has United seen the light and decided that, like Delta, it thinks wifi is important for the future? I’m not so sure. One of the big questions surrounding this merger is what will happen to the onboard product on the domestic fleet. It seems that the TVs on the Continental fleet are safe for now, but did LiveTV have to pony up to make that happen? While JetBlue has signed up for this internet offering already (as it should since it owns LiveTV), it’s not operational anywhere yet. But LiveTV is high on this, and it was also probably quite concerned about the possibility of losing its TV contract with the new United.

So did LiveTV give United a sweetheart deal on internet to a) keep its TVs onboard and b) help build the buzz around the internet offering? It seems quite possible to me. And that’s probably a smart business move on LiveTV’s part. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that United is sold on internet. If it was, I imagine that we would have seen a complete announcement about the domestic fleet and not just a partial one.

What does this mean for the future of entertainment on United? It does seem clear that TV is going to stay for now, but whether it will be expanded or not is entirely unclear. The incompleteness of this announcement is why I figure that LiveTV made United and offer it couldn’t refuse. And since this is an LOI, there’s no guarantee that even this will happen. Hopefully the coming months will bring us more on the direction that United is going to take.

For years, we’ve all put up with airlines having two types of onboard products. They had the mainline product on larger airplanes actually flown by that airline and then they had the regional product for those flights on smaller airplanes operated by third party carriers. It was, to see the least, a wildly different experience. Now, however, Delta has been working to harmonize the two, and the announcement that it will put wifi on its 70- and 90-seat regional jets is welcome news. Hopefully others take the hint and start harmonizing their product offerings further as well.

It’s no surprise that the different product standards emerged. Regional airlines were originally meant to fly short hops into small towns. Would you have expected First Class on that 19-seat prop flying 30 minutes from Dubuque? Probably not. But regionals changed.

The invention of the 50-seat jet started to push airlines to use them on longer routes. I remember seeing 50-seaters on routes like Cincinnati to Colorado Springs, routes that are over 1,000 miles and certainly in need mainline comfort levels. But the 50-seat jets were tiny and spartan and not much was going to change since they still predominantly flew shorter haul flights anyway.

When the regionals started flying 70- and 90-seat jets under the big airline brands, that was the breaking point. The line became too blurry between mainline and regionals on the route map but the product still lagged. Sometimes, airlines thought that was good. America West even went as far as putting First Class on its 70-seat jets and then later opting to fly 90-seat jets instead with an all-coach configuration (something that lives on today with US Airways). Two airlines, however, have worked to bring the standard of flying on larger regional jets up, United and Delta. It’s no surprise that these two would be the leaders since they have the biggest fleets of 70- and 90-seat jets.

For United, the integration was an awkward effort. Instead of trying to bring it up to a mainline standard, the airline invented a new brand called explus. Then again, this was around the time when United thought it was fun to brand everything different (Ted, p.s., etc). I don’t know if the brand is even still used, but the product differentiation is still there. The 70-seaters do offer First Class, but it’s not what you’ll get on mainline flights. You will, for example, get a meal on flights over 2 hours as on mainline, but your “meal” will be a snack box. Not quite the same.

The differences also exist in the back of the bus. While you can buy a snack box on mainline flights, you won’t have that option on United Express. You’ll also get no inflight entertainment at all no matter where you’re sitting. It’s just not the same experience.

Delta, however, is trying to bring the products together closer. As with United, all of the 70- and 90-seat jets will have First Class, but on Delta, those travelers now get meals on china with linens and silverware. It may not be the same food (I don’t actually know) as on mainline but it will be a similar experience. And now, Delta will be putting wireless internet on all of the 70- and 90-seat jets flying the Delta brand.

Over the years, the introduction of 70- and 90-seat jets has pushed most of the 50-seat jets back on to smaller, shorter routes. Cincinnati-Colorado Springs is no longer operated as part of the incredible shrinking hub, but Cincinnati to Denver is on a 70-seat jet. Since the 50-seaters are moving back to where they belong (though arguably, you can say they belong parked in the desert), that lets Delta set a service standard.

Delta has previously said that it wanted to have individual screens at each seat on flights over 4 hours in length. No regional jet is currently flying that far, so it’s not an issue. But now, Delta is saying that any flight longer than 2.5 hours will have First Class and wireless internet available. Anything less than 2.5 hours and the bet is off, but really, it doesn’t matter on the short flights. Delta realizes it’s not worth outfitting a bunch of 50-seaters with wifi because the flights are too short.

So now, the regional experience is creeping ever closer to the mainline experience. Mainline pilots will likely tell you that you aren’t getting the same level of safety when you fly on a regional, but that’s a topic for another time. In terms of onboard product, the two are finally heading towards one.

[Original photos via Wikimedia Commons user Craig/CC-BY-SA-3.0 and Flickr user cliff1066™/CC 2.0]