Southwest Airlines is offering passengers the ability to send and receive iMessages from their iOS devices in-flight for $2 per day. In-flight Wi-Fi access for all applications is available for $8 per device per day.
It's likely that the airline is opening up iMessage related ports to users who pay the $2, while users who pay more receive access to in-flight email, social networks and the like. For a limited time, all users receive access to 13 live television channels on laptops and iOS devices for free.
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Beginning today, Southwest is enabling iMessage for $2 a day!
Any Apple user that has iOS 5 or later with the iMessage feature pre-loaded on their device can take advantage of this option. Now you can stay powered up and connected to friends and family like you never left the ground.
In-flight Wi-Fi is not yet available on all Southwest flights, but the airline has a Wi-Fi finder on its website so flyers can check if their aircraft will support the service.
Southwest Airlines flies within the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Thanks to MacRumors Forum member Lumpydog for the screenshot!
Top Rated Comments
Yep. Am on a Southwest flight now. See pic
What a joke.
I think the joke is how much information was missed or misleading in this article. I fly SWA weekly. Essentially they're giving you a way to pay $2 rather than the normal $8 to just get iMessages rather than paying full boat for wifi if you don't need it. Seems pretty fair to me if that's all you're looking for. Gogo inflight on the other airlines doesn't offer the same option. (monthly subscriber)Also, you don't have to pay for wifi to get the television channels on your devices for free. Dish Network has been sponsoring the television channels for the last 3-5 months at no charge.
I'll look around to see the real number but it's my understanding that only a few of the 737-300 jets are the only that remain that don't have wifi. I haven't had a wifi-less flight on SWA in about 8 months. The article makes it sound like there aren't many with wifi.
Last, a-list preferred members get wifi for free. It's a great perk for frequent fliers and not offered by the other airlines...
connected to a wifi network does not mean you are connected to the internet.
Figure out what ports they opened up for iMessage, then open a ssh tunnel on that port so you can surf the entire internet for only $2.you connect to the plane's wifi network before you pay so now there will be an option on the splash screen to pay $2 and the only traffic allowed will be iMessage traffic.