Airline eyes iPads for in-flight entertainment

Australian low-cost airline Jetstar plans to implement iPads as in-flight entertainment units, according to leaked screenshots of purpose-built applications and content offerings.

Leaked screenshots (above) reveal how Australian low-cost airline Jetstar plans to use iPads as in-flight entertainment devices. Photo credit: Stellar Inflight and Bluebox Avionics

Michael Reilly, chief executive of Stellar Inflight, and David Brown, joint managing director of Bluebox Avionics — the two companies working with Jetstar to implement the iPad in flight — gave a presentation to a conference in the US in late February. The presentation documents, first reported by Runway Girl and Australian Business Traveller, reveal a great deal about how Jetstar plans to implement and maintain the Apple tablets, and what type of content will be available.

According to the presentation, Jetstar will modify the iPad to run a larger battery, which supports a massive 20 hours of use, and add radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to prevent device theft. Jetstar will swap out batteries after each flight to continue usage for the next route of passengers.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Jetstar's iPad plans leak on ZDNet Australia.