The Future Travel Experience team was at APEX EXPO in Boston this week, where a number of wireless inflight entertainment (IFE) providers made significant announcements. Here we round-up a selection of the latest products, upgrades and collaborations.
Bluebox offers airline customers free upgrade to accessible IFE
Immfly extends the scope of its digital services and entertainment platform
Immfly’s airline customers can now offer passengers access to content and other digital services while they are at the airport waiting for their flight. The Immfly platform, which up until now has only been available in-flight, can now be accessed in airport lounges and boarding gates thanks to the launch of Immfly Lounge.
Immfly Lounge enables “an extension of the digital experience with the passenger”. The company says it will help to improve the passenger’s perception of the digital services provided by the airline during the day of travel, which will in turn boost NPS; provide a more seamless experience; enable more data collection; promote a higher level of engagement; and create new ancillary revenue opportunities (e.g. advertising, booking destination activities, seat upgrades, pre-order onboard F&B and loyalty programme engagement).
Jimmy von Korff Martinez, Co-Founder of Immfly, said: “Combining the inflight entertainment platform with the in-airport platform that offers the same entertainment content will allow customers to browse and select content before the flight for watching it later. In the same way, it will allow them to start watching a movie while waiting to board and continue watching the same movie inflight, or to book or buy an activity for their final destination, which means passengers will benefit from a seamless experience and content consumption before and during the flight.”
In addition, Immfly launched Immfly ACTIVE, a self-access portal that has been created to empower airlines with data relating to passengers’ usage and the platform’s performance. It provides airlines with detailed monitoring and management tools, including Dashboard, Aircraft Health, Survey Management, Content Management and AdSERVER.
AirFi brings the world’s biggest dance events to inflight entertainment
AirFi announced that it has secured global distribution rights to the world’s biggest dance events. DANCE 24 will offer hundreds of hours of dance music content featuring event live streams, set recordings, documentaries, DJ interviews, trailers, after-movies and more. DANCE 24 will launch across the AirFi Wireless IFE client portfolio this fall.
AirFi, which will be showcasing its IFE solutions at the free-to-attend FTE Asia EXPO (13-14 November, Singapore) has secured global distribution rights for the travel industry – from airlines to hotels – to stream the world’s biggest dance events and festivals to out of home travellers. Festivals like Ultra, Mysteryland, Awakenings and Creamfields will feature on the platform.
“We are hugely excited to have the exclusive rights for the travel industry to bring these mega dance music events to the world’s travellers,” said Martin Cunnison, AirFi’s CCO & self-proclaimed “Raver-in-Residence”. “DANCE 24 offers live-streaming and set recordings of the biggest events each year, plus hundreds of hours of content video and audio packages from bite-size to full-length. At the same time, we’ve removed all the uncertainty of music streaming licenses as DANCE 24 is 100% rights cleared.”
Inflight Dublin and IdeaNova announce collaboration
IFE provider Inflight Dublin announced a strategic collaboration with IdeaNova, a provider of IFE solutions and Digital Rights Management (DRM). The partnership utilises IdeaNova’s technology range including the INPLAY product line for the provision of content streaming solutions for the wireless IFE Everhub. The partnership taps into IdeaNova’s advanced DRM technology and Inflight Dublin’s extensive experience in content procurement and management.
“We are excited about this partnership with Inflight Dublin as our technology combined with Inflight Dublin content and Everhub capabilities brings a new level of satisfaction to airline travellers. Here at IdeaNova we continue to innovate, and through our partnership with Inflight Dublin, we bring this innovation to passengers’ fingertips and provide additional revenue opportunities to airlines,” said Juraj Siska, IdeaNova CEO.
John White, Inflight Dublin’s CEO, added. “As one of the leading IFE companies, we understand the value and need for creative, cutting-edge technology solutions and this partnership supports Inflight Dublin’s growth strategy. We look forward to the bright wireless future.”
