Forget That Mid-Air Nap – You'll Be Checking Your Email Instead

Interesting announcement from Delta a day or two ago.

Through a partnership with a Aircell, they’ll be the first major US airline to offer Wi-Fi on their entire domestic fleet – over 300 aircraft in total. If you fly American Airlines or Virgin, you may have been able to try out on-board Wi-Fi on certain major routes – but Delta is the first to bite the bullet and do a full scale roll-out.

Estimated completion date for Delta’s fleet Wi-Fi upgrade is said to be mid 2009.

Update: Cost of this service is rumored to be $9.95 for flights with a duration of 3 hours or less and $12.95 for cross-country flights. For mobile devices such as the iPhone and frequent flyers, special rate plans are said to be under development. We’ll keep you posted.

I’m sort of mixed on this. It’ll be great to stay connected – but man, I’ll miss that rare opportunity to escape the avalanche of emails during work hours, even only for a little while. 

What say you?