Virgin Australia plans to ditch its traditional inflight entertainment screens in favour of a new system which will offer content to passengers on their personal devices using Wi-Fi technology.
BoardConnect will be rolled out to business and economy class passengers from mid-2012 following an agreement between the airline and Lufthansa Systems.
Virgin Australia product and guest services group executive, Martin Daley, said in a statement that passengers would be provided with a wide range of products including video and audio streaming delivered “on demand” to Wi-Fi enabled devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops.
Daley said the planned rollout was in response to the growing number of travellers bringing their own devices on board.
Passengers will be offered movies, television, games and audio content along with service information such as destination guides and travel offers.
However, Virgin Australian passengers could be waiting a while for Wi-Fi internet. In September this year, an airline spokesperson said that the rollout of Wi-Fi internet on board flights in Australia would not take place until third party providers begin installing terrestrial Wi-Fi base stations to provide internet connectivity.
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