Today, Google announced that for the second year in a row it will be offering up free internet connectivity to holiday travelers. Last year during the holiday travel season, the company provided free Wi-Fi in airport terminals. This year, the search giant is taking the free Wi-Fi to the sky. Google has announced that Google Chrome will sponsor free, Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi service on domestic AirTran, Delta, and Virgin America flights from November 20, 2010 to January 2, 2011. “Just bring a Wi-Fi enabled laptop or mobile device and stay connected to family and friends while you travel,” writes Google. There you have it, free airborne 802.11… courtesy of Google Chrome.

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Internet access and WiFi are becoming ubiquitous these days with coffee shops, libraries, bookstores and even McDonald’s offering some type of access to the net. We have been waiting for an airline to finally offer WiFi and it looks like Virgin America will be the first to offer it fleet-wide. If you subscribe to Virgin’s email notifications, you’ll notice that the airline company will be launching a beta of its Gogo® in-flight Internet service on November 22, coinciding with the first-ever live stream of YouTube. In addition to cash-less ordering of food and drinks, some of the largest behind-the-seat television screens, USB/Electrical/Ethernet ports at every seat and over 3000 MP3s at every seat, this new service is really going to help Virgin America take off. The WiFi will only be a beta at the end of this month but will be 100% live throughout its fleet in the Spring of 2009. Virgin America is now Serving San Francisco (hub), Los Angeles (secondary hub), Las Vegas, San Diego, Seattle, New York JFK, Washington DC Dulles and soon Chicago.

[Thanks, Roger A!]

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