American Airlines & Hilton Entertain Road Warriors

Both Hilton Hotels and American Airlines announced this week they are ramping up programs to entertain their traveling clientele.

First up, American Airlines revealed they will be running a four month pilot (pun!) program in which business/first class customers will be loaned Archos 704 PMPs and Bose QuietComfort headsets. Don’t worry, though — us working class coach customers will have the option of renting a lower-end Archos with earbuds. (Fees haven’t been disclosed yet.) The portable media centers will be preloaded with movies, shows, and tunes.

I can’t imagine the maintenance of the devices (loading media, wiping them down) will be efficient and I wonder how well the hardware will hold up. I also wonder if folks in coach will bother paying. I know I won’t. However, I would pay big bucks for an Internet connection.

Meanwhile, Hilton Hotels is rolling out home theater accommodations in Chicago and San Francisco. The 50 rooms will each be outfitted with a 42″ plasma, Yamaha YSP-800 digital sound projector, HD DirecTV, and XM radio programming. In addition, a “connectivity panel” and Monster Cable pack will be provided to link all sorts of MP3 players and digital cameras. Paris Hilton had no comment.