Man in motion

How one traveler keeps in touch using Connexion by Boeing service

BY JACK ARENDS

Four years after Connexion by Boeing began operating as a business unit of The Boeing Company, its stated vision of "people working together to revolutionize the way we work, communicate, entertain ourselves and relax while mobile" has translated into reality for Lufthansa German Airlines passengers.

Lufthansa became the launch customer for Boeing's new mobile information service last May, with service starting on the Munich-Los Angeles route. The ability to send and receive personal and business e-mail, including attachments, and access the Internet and business intranets, is delivering real benefits for business travelers.

One such traveler is Andreas Binz, director of logistics and purchasing for Interton US/American Hearing Systems, a company based in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, that designs and manufactures hearing-aid systems. The company's 300-person workforce is split almost evenly between its German headquarters and a Minnesota manufacturing facility acquired in 2001.

Consequently, Binz said he spends "nearly three months of the year traveling to the United States and also to some of the European countries," he wrote in an exchange of e-mail correspondence with Boeing Frontiers. "I read about the Connexion service in Lufthansa's in-flight magazine and I was curious to test it. I had the chance when I traveled to Los Angeles in the summer."

Binz said that when he first used the service, he registered for a personal account and paid the flat fee for the full flight. "Since [Interton] has an intranet accessible over the World Wide Web, it was very helpful to be able to access our server and work on some of the planning for the month," he wrote. "And checking and getting e-mails was fun, as people had been pretty sure that I wasn't going to respond before getting back to the office on Monday. They were astonished when I wrote to them that I was sitting on an airplane."

Binz was satisfied with his experience, and his company subsequently signed up for a corporate account with Connexion, available to all its employees on business travel.

"I just put the use of Connexion on my expense account, and I am 100 percent reimbursed for this," Binz wrote, "because e-mail has become a major part of doing business today. Web access is very important; people expect you to answer them ASAP because there is the possibility you can hook up to your computer everywhere in the world. Airplanes were, or are, on certain routes, still the only places that lack connections."

jack.h.arends@boeing.com