Small Planet Airlines will begin offering virtual reality (VR) inflight entertainment on board some of its aircraft. The European leisure carrier has selected the Inflight VR solution, in a partnership with service provider Newrest’ TRE³ and connectivity provider AirFi, for offering its passengers the full benefit of virtual reality.
The service will initially be available on aircraft that operate flights from Amsterdam to destinations in southern Europe such as the Canary Islands and Rhodes in Greece. After a successful implementation in the Netherlands, the plan is to progressively expand the service to further destinations towards the end of the year.
“We are very proud to be the first to offer this new in-flight entertainment feature to our passengers,” says Lina Griciuvienė Head of Inflight Services Division at Small Planet Airlines. “Being a fairly new player in the leisure travel field, we want to offer the best and most advanced, and are convinced this all new Inflight VR concept will greatly contribute to making the travel experience on board our aircraft much more pleasant”.
“We are the largest AirFi user in the world. Every day on board our 28 aircraft there are almost 200 AirFi boxes flying around, and our largest base in Katowice (Poland) accommodates 80 of them. As a young company, we are always hungry for new. So that is why we are extremely happy that we can put some innovation onboard and participate in the new project together with Inflight VR,” says Piotr Bożyk Senior Inflight Specialist at Small Planet Airlines responsible for the AirFi project.
Using a highly ergonomic, fully stand-alone and autonomous headset, Small Planet Airlines’ passengers can get completely immersed into a virtual reality world, hereby forgetting they are in a space-restricted cabin. They will not only be able to watch videos or a theatre play in VR, but can also explore interesting places as if they were there. They can, seamlessly practise certain relaxing activities, go VR shopping, or enjoy some conventional gaming.
The programme contents, developed in this instance in partnership with connectivity provider AirFi, are fully tailored to Small Planet Airlines’ specific requirements and adapted to the inflight environment, hereby avoiding any risk of potential motion sickness. “AirFi always likes to be in the forefront of supporting cabin innovations and Inflight VR is a great example of this,” comments AirFi CEO Job Heimerikx.
“As innovation and technology is part of the TRE³ core business, we are delighted to participate in the Virtual Reality (VR) journey of the aviation world with Inflight VR. With pride, we are serving Small Planet as the first customer to bring passenger experience to new heights!” says TRE³’ Country Manager Jalal Zriouil.
“Seeing a young, dynamic and forward-looking carrier like Small Planet select our in-flight VR entertainment system is a great endorsement of our concept,” adds Inflight VR Chief Commercial Officer Raphael Baumann. “We look very much forward to the deployment of this partnership and its subsequent successful expansion.”
