Virgin America and Google are teaming up to offer free wireless Internet to passengers between Nov. 10 and Jan. 25. The service normally costs between $5.96 and $12.95 depending on the length of the flight.

The in-flight service is provided by Gogo Inflight Internet. Google’s precise involvement in the free offer hasn’t been detailed, though the most likely explanation is that it’s partially subsidizing the offer as a sponsorship deal.

Users will simply have to connect to the network, supply an e-mail address (spam is usually the price of “free”), agree to terms and conditions and complete a CAPTCHA. There are no technical limitations on how passengers use the Web access, though you’d certainly hope people remember they are in a semi-public place and avoid certain types of content.

Virgin claims that its research shows more than half of those questioned say the availability of Wi-Fi would affect their choice of airline. That sounds very dubious to me: while it might be a factor for frequent business fliers, I can’t see it being a deciding factor for people who only make occasional trips or those on short flights. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover the survey was carried out among passengers on “commuter” flights, which would distort the results.

Still, in reality the free offer is not about trying to get passengers to switch to Virgin for their Thanksgiving or Christmas trips. The real aim is to get people who’d already decided on the airline to try the Wi-Fi service when they’d normally have balked at paying a fee, or simply not bothered taking their laptop on board.

If those people then find the service useful, they’ll be more likely to consider paying for Wi-Fi in future, or pass on a good review to friends. However, that does put the onus of Virgin to make sure the system can handle the extra demand produced by the free offer.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 10:24 am under Google, Wi-Fi.

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