At the World Airline Entertainment Association Conference and Exhibition today, Alaska Airlines announced that it's planning to launch in-flight Wi-Fi next year using Row 44's satellite-based broadband solution. Guess they didn't want to be left out of the in-flight Wi-Fi party...

The airline will start by trialing the system on a single airplane next spring - if that goes well, it'll be expanded to all 114 planes in the company's fleet.

"Bringing broadband Internet access to the skies is one of the most important things we can do to enhance the experience of both business and leisure customers," says alaska airlines' Steve Jarvis.

Because it's satellite-based, Row 44's system can be used on Alaska Airlines flights to Alaska, Hawaii, Canada and Mexico.

More here from Wi-Fi Networking News ... more here from Gizmodo ... more here from Engadget ... more here from InformationWeek ... more here from Switched ... and the press release is here.