Delta announced that they will be offering Wi-Fi access on there entire domestic mainline fleet. Delta is partnering with airborne communications leader Aircell to offer Gogo. The Gogo service will allow Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, to access the Internet.

The Wi-Fi will cost $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights more than three hours.

Aircell was chosen to install the Wi-Fi because it is much cheaper and easier to install compared to the once offered service Connexion by Boeing. Boeing offered Connexion in 2004 but, it was canceled in 2006 because it was too bulky to be used on Boeing’s smaller domestic planes.

Other airlines like American Airlines, Virgin America, and JetBlue have similar Wi-Fi plans in place. All of Delta’s mainline aircraft in the U.S. will get the service installed. The first Delta planes to get Gogo installed will be it’s 133 MD 88/90 planes. By the end of 2009 Delta plans to have the Wi-Fi installed on more than 330 aircraft.

Offering wifi service will surely help the struggling airline industry recoup from the high expenses of the higher fuel prices.

Man, it has to be embarrassing when a company so colossally screws up the message. This is what happened this morning when it came out that AT&T was going to offer free wireless access to all Iphone users at the more than 17,000 AT&T wifi hotspots across the country.

Excitement mounted at sites like Iphone Alley and Gear Diary. The only problem was…

It wasn’t true. AT&T made a big mistake. According to CNET:

For the second time in less than six months, AT&T mistakenly published a notice on its Web site indicating that Apple iPhone users would get free access to the wireless operator’s more than 17,000 Wi-Fi hot spots around the country.

The notice was on the AT&T website for an hour before it was removed. AT&T issued the statement:

“We have not made any announcement regarding free Wi-Fi and iPhone.  The Web page was posted in error and is being removed.”

OK, here’s the big question: Why did this happen? Again?! (it happened in May, too). Somebody at AT&T obviously typed this announcement and posted it. These things don’t appear on their own. So, that means that somewhere in the deep, dark crevices of AT&T, we either have rouge employees who are practicing wishful thinking or trying to embarrass the company or we have real intentions within AT&T to offer free wifi and somebody just jumped the gun before they were ready to make the official announcement.

Which is it?

One thing is clear: this makes AT&T look REALLY bad. You just don’t pull these kinds of stunts.