I gave it a go but it’s now no no to GoGo.
I travel frequently and value my time. In 2018 I went all in for the monthly GoGo pass on my primary carrier, Alaska Airlines. I will not repeat.
First and foremost, the service level was consistently disappointing with the root cause be latency. It was like hour glassing back in the early Windows days. And it cuts against my grain as a Type A ADHD entrepreneur. I have a need for speed and constant stimulation.
Not only was the latency measured in consistent slow speeds but also time out conditions. Using multiple devices to test and verify, I concluded it wasn’t me but them (GoGo). Often I’d have to authenticate again and again just to try and maintain a working session. The analogy would be that of constantly rebooting back in the old days!
The poor performance wasn’t necessarily a function of geography or time. Urban or rural. Day or night. GoGo sucked.
Free movies and messaging. Two gap fillers in the no GoGo world were the free movies/taped TV shows on Alaska. In most cases, I could fire my endorphins by playing a current movie (and saving me time and money from having to attend traditional movie theaters back on the ground. And the basic messaging has served me well with friends, family and staff to ping each other with nonsense and serious conversations on the fly.
Relax focus succeed. I also discovered a bit about myself when I cut the GoGo cord. Turns out the world continues to turn when I’m offline and out of touch. Borrowing from managed services provider (MSP) thought leader Karl Palachuk, it’s my chance to take a few pages out of his California theraphy book called Relax, Focus, Succeed.
I would tell you that my unplugged approach to flights has become my chill pill and I arrive more refreshed and ready to go hunt and kill game in the private sector.
Facts. The monthly GoGo subscription was $49.95 a month which amortizes extremely nicely to the average fee of $29.95 per flight – if it all worked swimmingly. You can always cheat and use the 30-min session for $8.50 to quickly sync your store-and-forward email client to get a mid-point fix.
Finally, I spoke with a learned individual about whether there was a way to corral up a posse and do a class action law suit against GoGo. No – it’s not a reasonable alternative with its published usage policies and the basic test of how have I been harmed. But I looked into it!
Happy flying!