American Airlines has rolled out a new wifi-based inflight entertainment option – Entertainment On Demand – which enables passengers to stream movies and TV shows from an inflight library.
The service, powered by Gogo Wireless, costs US$0.99 per TV show and US$3.99 per movie. Passengers who avail of the service need not pay for inflight wifi, which starts from US$4.95 for a single 90-minute flight. Instead, passengers simply need to click on the Entertainment On Demand banner on the inflight wifi homepage and then choose from a frequently-updated library of TV shows and movies, create an account or log in, fill out payment details and click “watch”. If the movie runs longer than the flight time and has been fully loaded, the passenger can continue watching it on the ground through gogoair.com.
Initially, the service is available on 15 of the carrier’s Boeing B767-200 fleet, which is used on transcontinental routes including the New York JKF-Los Angeles and New York JFK-San Francisco routes. Eventually, upon receiving FAA approval, the carrier will expand the service across more aircraft.
The service will also be made available for other devices. “We’ve been deeply involved in developing the concept of streaming video with Gogo, as part of our vision to elevate the travel experience,” said Rob Friedman, American Airlines’ vice president of marketing. "During this initial phase of the launch, Entertainment On Demand allows customers to access content through wifi enabled laptops and in the coming months Gogo intends to extend the service to tablets and other mobile devices."
So far, American Airlines has made wifi available on all of its B767-200 aircraft and B737-800 aircraft fleet as well as a selection of MD80 aircraft.
For more information, visit www.aa.com
Alisha Haridasani
