JetBlue provides the Connected Society investment theme with a strong tailwind
JetBlue has become the first airline to provide free, high-speed Wi-Fi on all flights.The airline announced Wednesday that it will offer its “Fly-Fi” aboard every aircraft—from the departure gate to the arrival gate—so that customers can stay connected without having to wait for the aircraft to ascend beyond 10,000 feet. With Fly-Fi, passengers can watch free movies, stream content from Amazon Video, browse the web, and use messaging apps.
Source: You Can Now Enjoy Free Wi-Fi on Every JetBlue Flight | Travel + Leisure
WiFi in the skies isn’t anything new — it was first introduced in 2007 by AirCell and it’s Go-Go Service with American Airlines and Virgin American. The biggest concern with the service (beyond battery life of the laptop!) was capacity and as such access prices were set by airlines at a point that would hopefully limit passengers from overwhelming the network on the plane, making it unusable.
Flash forward to earlier this week, and JetBlue’s announcement that it would provide free Wifi on all flights to all passengers. Remember, this is the airline that changed in the in-flight entertainment experience offering in-seat DirecTV service for free. Gone were the days of having to watch the one bad movie the airline chose to play followed by sitcom reruns. Might not seem like much, but a 2-hour tarmac delay once on a JetBlue flight from Washington, DC to Boston made us instant fans!
The move by JetBlue in our view is a reaction to the realities of the Connected Society and Content is King thematics. Gone are the days where passengers watch live TV. Instead, they wish to stream the content they want and binge-watch the hottest program. What could make a flight go by faster than a marathon viewing of Amazon’s new series Grand Tour!
We can’t speak to the economics of this move to the airline itself — we’ll leave that to folks like Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Funds and issuer of the JETS Exchange Traded Fund — but in our view it’s good news for content providers, device makers and other players in our Connected Society investment theme as well as Content in King.
