Airlines and service providers currently are deciding on permissions and restrictions for in-flight Internet services to be offered in the coming months.
Many will block services such as Internet phone calls, some will impose limits and install filters on content, and other airlines will not have restrictions, allowing travelers to use their own discretion.
In-flight Internet access raises issues of free speech, etiquette and openness, said Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's chief inventors and a critic of network restrictions.
"Airlines have to be sensitive to the fact that customers are [seated] close together and may be able to see each other's PC screens," Cerf said. "More to the point, young people are often aboard the plane."
Flights on AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and Alaska Air Group's Alaska Airlines will not allow access to Internet-based phone services like eBay's Skype, with possible exceptions for crew and federal air marshals.
Upstart discount airline Virgin America also is considering a ban on Internet-based phone services.
"An airborne environment is a confined environment," said Charles Ogilvie, Virgin America's director of in-flight entertainment and partnerships. "You don't want 22B yapping away or playing on a boom box."
American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Virgin America have no plans to filter websites based on their content. Though an airline may manage traffic and delay large downloads, Virgin will give passengers the option of enabling controls for their kids.
"We think decency and good sense and normal behavior" will prevail, said Jack Blumenstein, chief executive officer of Aircell, which will launch service on some American Airlines and Virgin America flights in 2008.
Alaska Airlines, which will begin service on many flights in the spring, will apply the same guidelines to in-flight Internet users as those for passengers viewing magazines or DVDs.
"Occasionally, we do have conversations with customers about content," said Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Amanda Tobin Bielawski.
Australia-based Qantas Airways hired Panasonic Avionics, a Matsushita Electric Industrial company, to design its high-speed Internet service to block sites on an "objectionable list," including sites featuring porn and violence, said David Bruner, executive director of corporate sales and marketing. He said airlines based in more restrictive countries could choose to expand the list.
Glenn Fleishman, editor of the Wi-Fi Networking News website, said operators of public Wi-Fi networks generally do not filter because users know that others can see what they surf. A coffee-shop employee might occasionally ask a customer to leave, Fleishman said, "but those stories tend to be pretty far between."
In-flight Internet use is different, however, since children occupy the flights and they are at closer quarters. An airline might be subject to harassment complaints if it refuses to clamp down, said John Palfrey, a Harvard Law School professor.
"I think they have a right to [filter], but I come up short of saying they have the responsibility," Palfrey said. "I'd rather have the responsibility in the hands of passengers and require them to be accountable for what they do on laptops and airplanes."
Steve Jones, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor who specializes in Internet studies, said passengers and flight crews would need to undergo "the kinds of learning the ropes and learning the etiquette any time we put new technology in new settings."
Just as most people have come to set boundaries for cell-phone use in public settings, he said, "we will see develop social norms for using the Internet in-flight."
