Boredom and lost productivity in the air will soon be a thing of the past with the introduction of Internet access on aircraft.

TechCrunch said on Thursday that American airline, JetBlue had announced that it would provide services restricted to Yahoo! Mail, Messenger and Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerries to access BB mail and messenger.

However, it has recently came out that American Airlines will start offering complete web-access onboard followed shortly by Virgin America. There is again likely to be a catch; this time not with what you can access but with the cost-of-use. Both airlines, American and Virgin are likely to charge $10 per flight for the privilege to access the Internet in-flight. Personally, I’d pay it, but…

TechCrunch says “…it could be worth a lot more to them to offer it for free, and use it to build brand loyalty”. I agree, especially for airlines trying to win business clientele.

I haven’t heard any news of the Australian airlines - Qantas, Virgin Blue and Qantas-owned JetStar - planning to offer onboard net access. I think it would be a great move for Virgin Blue, seeing they’re increasingly attacking the business segment, to offer it.