WiFi, Live Television and a new look for flydubai’s award-winning Inflight Entertainment System

Ghaith Al Ghaith, Chief Executive Officer of flydubai, commenting on the launch: “flydubai has been committed to investing in product innovations and technologies that enhance the travel experience for our passengers from day one.  We want to offer customers more choice, a greater experience and affordable access to the technologies we are all coming to expect in the air, just as we do on the ground. Adding WiFi connectivity, live television along with our enhanced ground-breaking inflight entertainment system will allow us to continue to deliver that personalised flying experience our customers expect and appreciate.”

From 24 April 2016 WiFi connectivity and Live TV will be available through the Inflight portal for the first time on selected flights as flydubai continues to roll out the service across the rest of its fleet.  The wireless satellite-based network will allow passengers to buy a package from as low as USD 04 to get connected during a flight using their personal devices and from USD 08 to tune in to catch up with the news on BBC World News, Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya, enjoy Arabic shows on MBC1 or fascinating documentaries on Discovery.

flydubai partnered with Global Eagle Entertainment (GEE) to launch the fully-integrated Inflight Entertainment & Connectivity (IFEC) System. flydubai already receives inflight media content through GEE and the installation of connectivity systems expands the partnership to include integrated IFEC solutions offering WiFi-enabled internet connectivity, an extensive library of more than 2,000 hours of on-demand content and the capability to stream live TV.

"GEE has enabled flydubai to take control of the total inflight passenger experience like never before, starting with integrated inflight entertainment, connectivity, digital media solutions and rounding it out with real-time data operations solutions," said Dave Davis, Chief Executive Officer at GEE. "We're looking forward to tailoring additional solutions that will continue to enhance the flydubai passenger experience in the months and years ahead."

flydubai became the launch customer for the award-winning Lumexis Fiber-to-the-Screen (FTTS) inflight entertainment system in November of 2010 and is available across most of its fleet.   

The carrier relaunched its inflight entertainment system in 2012 introducing more content and a friendlier user interface. The product enhancements continued as the carrier became in 2013 the first airline in the world to offer daily, printed format digital newspapers in flight through the eReader platform. 2016 sees flydubai reinvent its seatback inflight entertainment system introducing a more vibrant, user friendly interface with more content than ever before from Hollywood, Bollywood, Arabic and Russian cinema.

Daniel Kerrison, Vice President of Inflight Product at flydubai, who has been driving the innovation of its cabin appearance and services since the launch of the airline in 2008, said: "We are excited to be offering as many creative and innovative product choices as we can to our passengers and giving them the option to decide which products and services they wish to include in their travel experience. We are very happy with our partnership with GEE and we are determined to provide our passengers with an experience similar to what they have come to expect from consumer electronics like tablets and smartphones.”

IFE in numbers:

Passengers can purchase a package to access all the content on the IFE for AED 35. Passengers travelling in Business Class can access all of IFE content free of charge.

Total # of hours of entertainment (Movies / TV / Audio): 2139

Total # of movies on board: 292

Total # of Hollywood movies on board: 218

Total # of children’s movies on board: 56

Total # of Arabic movies on board:18

Total # of World Cinema movies on board: 10

Total # of Bollywood movies  on board: 29

Total # of Russian movies  on board: 10

Airtime Inflight:

Passengers have a choice of purchasing one of four packages from as low as USD 04:

• WiFi all-flight pass USD 10
• WiFi 30-minute pass (on flights over 2 hours only) USD 04
• Live TV USD 08
• Messaging (access to WhatsApp, iMessage and Viber only) USD 02
• Premium package: Live TV & WiFi bundle USD 15

Live Television:

• Passengers can tune in to watch streaming of five different channels live for USD 08:
• BBC World News – English
• Al Jazeera News Channel – English
• Al Arabiya News Channel – Arabic
• MBC 1- Arabic
• Discovery Channel English

Passengers travelling in Business Class can access all five Live TV channels free of charge.