“What do tech-savvy frequent flyers want most? The desire to stay connected via Wi-Fi topped the technology requests, according to a new study conducted by American Airlines and HP,” says an HP press release from last week.  The online survey conducted by American Airlines reports that “47 percent of business travelers surveyed indicated Wi-Fi was the most important airport amenity, outscoring basic travels needs such as food by nearly 30 percentage points” — a not-so-surprising coincidence given AA’s recent announcement of their roll-out of the Gogo inflight Internet service.

The survey was obviously constructed to provide publicity around the Gogo roll-out, but I have to disagree with two of the key findings.  First, given the dire state of on-board food, I rate airport food availability much higher than WiFi — especially if I’m getting on a flight heading to or from the West Coast.  Between my BlackBerry and iPhone, I can handle almost all my communication needs with cellular data.  But having to make a meal from one of those $6 snack boxes?  That’s a crisis in the making.

The other finding I take issue with is their claim that “work efficiency drops dramatically in the air” for lack of voice and data network connectivity.  On the contrary, I think my work efficiency increases without Outlook pinging me with a new e-mail or TweetDeck beeping with the latest tweet or my iPhone vibrating with a new text message or a colleague asking a quick question on IM or somebody calling me to ask how things are going….  I look forward to my 4-hours of enforced solitude on my flights between Chicago and San Francisco.  I get an amazing amount of reading and writing done.  Thank God that Gogo wants to charge $13/flight for their service.  If it was free, I’d never get anything done.