Wi-Fi rarely comes cheap for airline passengers. But Delta Air Lines is about to offer one form of connection at no charge: text messages.<\/p>\n

The airline\u00a0said on Wednesday\u00a0that it would offer free mobile messaging on flights beginning Sunday.<\/p>\n

The service is \u201cpart of a larger strategy around entertainment and giving our customers something they\u2019ve been asking for,\u201d said Dan Csont, vice president of brand management at Delta.<\/p>\n

Other airlines are expected to try to match the offer, but Delta could have an advantage, one aviation analyst said, because it has been investing heavily in equipment to help bolster its connectivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will undoubtedly be attempts by other carriers to try to match this, but it comes down to whether they have the hardware to do it,\u201d said Robert Mann, president of R. W. Mann & Company, an airline consulting firm.<\/p>\n

American Airlines and United Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Delta said that passengers on all flights on planes equipped with Wi-Fi from the broadband provider Gogo \u2014 which covers all but 130 small commuter planes out of the airline\u2019s 1,300 aircraft \u2014 would be able to send real-time texts through the apps iMessage, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, including international trips. SMS texts sent through cell networks will not be allowed, per regulatory restrictions, the airline said.<\/p>\n

Delta trumpeted its service, saying it would be the first global carrier based in the United States to offer onboard texting without charging for online access.<\/p>\n

But some airlines already offer more than free texting. Since the beginning of the year, JetBlue has\u00a0offered free Wi-Fi, which passengers can use to surf the internet, stream content and communicate on chat apps.<\/p>\n

Internationally, several carriers have free Wi-Fi arrangements. Emirates passengers on most flights get\u00a0up to 20 megabytes\u00a0within two hours and can use the connection to send messages through social networks. Philippine Airlines has a similar\u00a0limited deal.<\/p>\n

And the wireless carrier T-Mobile offers customers\u00a0free texting\u00a0via certain apps during Gogo-enabled flights in the United States through airlines including Delta, United, American and Virgin.<\/p>\n

The Delta service announced on Wednesday will not support photo or video files. Text messaging will be available as a subset of Delta\u2019s Wi-Fi offerings; customers will still have to pay to browse the web.<\/p>\n

But the ability to communicate with the ground free of charge is appealing for many types of jet-setters.<\/p>\n

Texting can help coordinate pickup times so that loved ones don\u2019t have to loop around the airport waiting out a flight delay. Business travelers \u2014 who tend to pay higher fares \u2014 can do work en route to a meeting.<\/p>\n

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Prices for in-flight Wi-Fi access\u00a0have surged in recent years as demand has grown, so free texting could be a compelling selling point.<\/p>\n

An all-day Wi-Fi pass\u00a0costs $16\u00a0plus tax for an American Airlines domestic flight. At Southwest, access costs\u00a0$8 a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch as the availability of basic Wi-Fi for purchase was once the basis for choice, now the free messaging could be the deciding factor,\u201d Mr. Mann said. \u201cEvery airline is always trying to find one more hook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Csont said there is \u201clarge demand\u201d for Wi-Fi access but declined to say how many passengers pay for access. He said the airline has tested the messaging service and is \u201cvery much ready\u201d for Sunday\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n

So could midair phone chats be next? Most airlines\u00a0now forbid\u00a0internet-based calls and have no plans to change their rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoice is the third rail \u2014 nobody wants to go near it,\u201d Mr. Mann said. \u201cWho wants to listen to that inside of a flying tube?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wi-Fi rarely comes cheap for airline passengers. But Delta Air Lines is about to offer one form of connection at no charge: text messages. The airline\u00a0said on Wednesday\u00a0that it would offer free mobile messaging on flights beginning Sunday. The service is \u201cpart of a larger strategy around entertainment and giving our customers something they\u2019ve been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4107"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4111,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4107\/revisions\/4111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}