Free Facebook access on major U.S. airlines

February is Facebook month at seven U.S. airlines offering free access to the social networking giant in order to encourage the inflight use of their wi-fi services.

This freebie is valid on North American flights for Virgin America, United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, AirTran, US Airways and Alaska Airlines.

If you want to access any other websites, it’ll cost extra, with prices ranging from $4.95 for a short flight to $12.95 for a long one, depending on the packages offered by various carriers, each with their own pricing for Internet connection. Based on all the other extras the airlines charge, what’s one more?

The purpose of the promotion is to increase the use of the Web on flights, which is currently only used by 10 percent of passengers. The promotional deal is available through Gogo Inflight Internet, which currently serves 1,1100 commercial aircraft flying around 3,800 flights a day, as well as 5,000 private planes.

The idea is similar to free cable preview weekends: first look for free. Gogo hopes that by offering flyers free Facebook, they’ll become accustomed to using the Internet on flights.