In-flight services become more and more sophisticated every day and JetBlue is one of the pioneers in the in-flight entertainment field.  After months of collaboration with Yahoo Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd, JetBlue announced that one of its A320 planes will provide in-flight internet connection.

Forrester Research analyst Henry Harteveldt said: “I think 2008 is the year when we will finally start to see in-flight internet access become available, but I suspect the rollout domestically will take place in a very measured way […] In a few years time, if you get on a flight that doesn’t have internet access, it would be like walking into a hotel room that doesn’t have TV.”

The all new service will allow passengers to send and receive e-mails on their Wi-Fi laptops and two types of Blackberrys for the time being (8820 & 8320) and it will be free of charge, at least for the testing period. Nate Quigley, chief executive of LiveTV responsible with the entertainment system and the in-flight internet access for JetBlue says: “Sometimes you just have to put things out there and see what happens when people try to use it. We’ll find the bugs and eventually get them worked out.”

Other carriers such as American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines have also announced the in-flight internet service in the following months. The Alaska Airlines spokesman stated: “We’re going to test the system on a single aircraft in the spring, and based on the outcome of that trial our plan is to equip our entire fleet by the end on 2009.”

A fee hasn’t been established yet, but according to a recent survey, 26 % of the passengers would be willing to pay 10$ for a two-hour flight, while 45 % would pay the same amount for flights longer than four hours.