Free Wi-Fi, more baggage charges and On-the-Road intelligence

By Joe Brancatelli

HIGH-TECH TRAVELER

Free Wi-Fi in the Air and the Airport:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and that means free Wi-Fi thanks to the folks at Google. The 800-pound gorilla of search engines will sponsor free Wi-Fi at more than 47 airports around the country until January 15. Google will also sponsor free in-flight on Virgin America flights. You can find all of the details here: http://www.freeholidaywifi.com

Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport now offers free Wi-Fi service, but you’ll have to present your boarding pass at an airline ticket counter to get a user name and password. The airport already has 126 computer kiosks that offer free Internet access.

AirTran Airways cut the price of its in-flight Wi-Fi by offering two-for-one ratesuntil the end of the year. All of the airline’s fleet of Boeing 717 and 737 aircraft are wired with GoGo Inflight.

Speaking of GoGo, it is struggling to find a market for the service it offers on AirTran, American, Delta and Virgin America flights. So it has cut the price of its 30-day pass to $24.95. That’s a 50 percent reduction.

On-the-Road Intelligence to Help You Travel Smarter:

Say goodbye to Mokulele, an inter-island Hawaiian carrier mostly owned by Republic, which also owns Frontier Airlines, Midwest Airlines and a slew of regional airlines. Republic is essentially handing over its service to go!, an inter-island carrier owned by Mesa Airlines.

The Federal Aviation Administration has fined United Airlines and US Airways a total of $9.2 million for safety-related violations. United was fined $3.8 million for operating a Boeing 737 on more than 200 flights with towels, instead of protective caps, covering an oil sump pump compartment inside an engine. US Airways was fined $5.4 million for operating eight aircraft on 1,647 flights even though the planes were not property inspected.

Surprise! The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security says that the Transportation Security Administration program to help travelers get off no-fly lists doesn’t work. The TRIP plan was supposed to aid travelers who had wrongly been placedon watch, no-fly lists and other security lists. “Redress-seekers generally do not benefit from their participation in TRIP,” the inspector general said.

Air France and KLM have joined most of the other transatlantic carriers and now charge coach passengers $50 for checking a second bag.