In-flight Wi-Fi spreading rapidly, but usage faces challenges

After many years of halting starts and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, in-flight Wi-Fi is finally coming into its own, with 8,700 domestic flights, 38 percent of the total, now offering Internet connectivity, according to a report by Routehappy.com, a Web site that ranks tens of thousands of daily flights by quality of comfort and amenities.

It remains to be seen, however, how viable in-flight Wi-Fi will be as a business — though Gogo, which leads the field with systems on more than 80 percent of all Wi-Fi-enabled flights in North America, had an initial public offering on Friday.