Southwest Airlines takes Wi-Fi fleetwide

Southwest Airlines Co. said Friday it will begin installation of Wi-Fi equipment on its airplanes in the second quarter and hopes to finish within two years.

“We expect to install equipment on around 15 aircraft per month initially, with the goal of increasing that number to 25 aircraft a month as we ramp up the process,” Southwest executive Dave Ridley wrote Friday on the carrier’s Nuts About Southwest blog.

“With this schedule, we estimate that our full fleet of more than 540 planes will be outfitted with Wi-Fi service by early 2012,” said Ridley, senior vice president of marketing.

Ridley said on the Southwest blog that the company will decide on pricing in the second quarter of 2010.

The Dallas-based carrier is using the technology from Row 44 Inc., a Westlake Village, Calif., company. Row 44 uses satellites to transmit the broadband signal to aircraft.

Its larger rival, Aircell LLC, uses ground-based transmitters on its Gogo system, which is being used by such carriers as American Airlines Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc.

Southwest, which announced two years ago that it would test the Row 44 technology on four airplanes, signed a contract with Row 44 this week to buy and install its equipment.

“Row 44 is thrilled to start equipping the Southwest Airlines fleet with broadband,” said John Guidon, Row 44’s CEO. “We could not be prouder than to have this market leader in passenger value as our first U.S. customer.”