Why no Skype? Because the owner of Skype doesn't feel like supporting that. That may make these devices unsuitable for you, but consider that this same owner may want to consider dropping service for you on your other devices, too.
(The ubiquitous presence of an ISA/OS pair is a historical anomaly, and I believe it's on the way out)
You can't log in to a Chromebook for the first time while on a plane.
After initialization, for example the Google Docs suite works pretty well with no connection - and so could any other web app that doesn't rely on connectivity for its base operation: eg. Skype on Windows on a plane will work just as bad as Hangouts on Chrome OS on a plane.
(The ubiquitous presence of an ISA/OS pair is a historical anomaly, and I believe it's on the way out)
You can't log in to a Chromebook for the first time while on a plane. After initialization, for example the Google Docs suite works pretty well with no connection - and so could any other web app that doesn't rely on connectivity for its base operation: eg. Skype on Windows on a plane will work just as bad as Hangouts on Chrome OS on a plane.