American Airlines Suing Gogo Over In-flight Connectivity Offering

Gogo still hopes to win back American Airlines from in-flight connectivity rival ViaSat, even though American is suing Gogo, Gogo said in an SEC filing Tuesday. American Airlines sued Gogo in Tarrant County, Texas, Friday, seeking a declaration that the airline properly notified the in-flight connectivity company about ViaSat's offering "a materially improved service." The suit says a clause in American's contract with Gogo lets the airline terminate that agreement when it finds a competitive offering better than Gogo's air-to-ground (ATG) system, but Gogo "refuses to acknowledge or accept American's notice letter under the agreement." In the suit, American said Gogo's ATG system provides at most 10 Mbps of bandwidth to be shared among all users on a given flight, and blocks most video content, but "new satellite-based services offer 12 Mbps per device [and] offer gate-to-gate WiFi access for customers, even over oceans." In a statement filed with the SEC, Gogo said that American "is a valued customer of ours and that we look forward to resolving the disagreement regarding contract interpretation that led to this declaratory judgment action." It also said it plans to give American a competing proposal to install its 2Ku satellite service on the air carrier. "We plan to submit a competing proposal to install our latest satellite technology -- 2Ku -- on this fleet. We believe that 2Ku is the best performing technology in the market and look forward to discussing our offer with American," Gogo said. In a statement Tuesday, American said it "continually evaluates in-flight connectivity service to determine what best meets our customers’ needs and wants. We’ve notified Gogo of a competitor’s offering, and we will evaluate all of our options.”