Tested Free Gogo Entertainment on Alaska Airlines

Alaska Airlines provides free access to the Gogo Wi-Fi flight entertainment service on selected flights. On a quick trip from Seattle to San Diego, I tested the service with my Sony Xperia C3.

Chat and video is available from Gogo on Alaska Airlines.

The fast download of the .apk for the Gogo Entertainment app gives an indication of how reliable the onboard Wi-Fi was on the Alaska flight. After installation, accessing Gogos service was simple.

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The Xperia C3 isnt a high-end device, but it was able to render the HD movie, though scrubbing through scenes was an issue if you dont give the movie enough time to load. Gogos app included a simple script to prevent users from taking screen captures so there is some effort with security, but downloading an .apk and manually installing it to an Android device isnt always the safest method to provide software to users.

Normally, I always find something interesting when it comes to in-flight entertainment selections, considering I hardly watch TV or movies. Surprisingly, though, none of the TV shows and movies caught my attention and ended up watching the flat and uninspired Central Intelligence (2016) with Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. I was able to complete the movi e during the short flight despite a bathroom break.

As with any publicly available encrypted Wi-Fi stream, the movie dropped frames and lagged a few times, particularly when the plane started to descend into San Diegos airspace. Apart from the limited selections (Big Bang Theory?), the service was a great alternative to the old onboard entertainment devices on Boeing and Airbus planes. I was impressed with how reliable Wi-Fi services on flights are today.

Admittedly, I dont really need Internet of chat services on short or even long-term flights. One of the reasons why I enjoy flying so much is isolation from the Internet - its an opportunity to focus on writi ng tasks or reading. However, I wish airlines would cut the price of plane tickets further, particularly for international flights if the trend towards bring-your-own device entertainment continues. Access to Wi-Fi services is great while flying, but as someone who works in software encryption, its rife with legal and security issues. Personally, I dont mind the old-school embedded multimedia hardware running Linux playing movies on small displays stuck on narrow airline seats.