The customer is not always right

Boeing cannot bad mouth its customers - American, Delta, United. But I can. I blame Boeing's decision to exit its Connexion WI-FI service from being locked out from the biggest potential customer market - us American passengers.

After agreeing to being charter members of the service, the 3 airlines dropped it like a hot potato after 9/11. But in the mean time, WI-FI enabled laptops have gone from near zero to 15 million sold last year. 567 airports in the US now offer hot spots. You cannot tell me at least 10 to 15% of those who used airport WI-FI would not have also used it in the air.

I travel almost every week. I pay T-Mobile $ 30 a month and at least one or two airports a month I end up having to buy roaming at $ 5 to 10 for 30 minutes before the flight. If I knew I could buy WI-FI on most flights, I would shift my dollars to that service...plenty of bankers, lawyers, consultants, accountants would do it without thinking twice...

Overseas, some of the best run (and profitable) airlines - Lufthansa, Singapore, Japan, SAS - offered it and reported steady increase in usage and importantly, significant spike in customer loyalty.

But we were never given a choice in the US.

We know why. US airlines are in bad shape. Well, we can continue to suffer with them or let them die and let a new breed of Jetblues and even foreign airlines move in.

Deep down Boeing knows on this one its customers - the US airlines - let it and us, the ultimate customers down.