Aussie Airlines Finally Launches iPad Service

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Via Lifehacker.
Via Lifehacker.

Pilots use them. Maintenance crews use them. Now you can rent an iPad to boost your entertainment options in flight.

The much-touted iPad entertainment system has finally take off at Jetstar, a subsidiary of Australian airlines Qantas. They will keep the minds of passengers off priority boarding irks and missed upgrades on a Nov. 9 flight from Melbourne to Auckland and will be on board for all flights over two hours.

This is perhaps the largest airlines to offer the service – AirBaltic currently offers iPads to passengers and Iceland Express also rents them to alleviate flight boredom.

Although airlines have been trumpeting about their iPad plans for in-flight use for ages, the programs have mostly failed to launch. This one was hailed as having wings during the trial period in June 2010 but took this long to get moving.

Back in September, Qantas said it would trial the iPads on just one one Boeing 767-300, starting in October for six weeks and only on domestic flights. The same airlines has also announced that Jetstar subsidiary would deploy in-flight iPads — but said iPad 2 procurement issues were slowing things down.

Like a lot of other things you now pay for on a plane, it’s worth considering your options before you board.

iPad rental runs $10-15 per flight, depending on whether you book ahead or buy on the plane. The rub: there aren’t iPads available for every passenger on board, as Lifehacker points out, so if you’re on a long-haul flight and want one, you have about a 50 percent chance of getting it.

Another consideration: the movies and TV shows don’t sound that different from what’s offered normally: two Harry Potter movies, “Friends with Benefits,” “Beginners,” “African Cats,” “Larry Crowne” and a few episodes of 25 different TV shows. Of course, you don’t have to crane your neck (or even hold the iPad, seats will have holders) so there’s definitely a difference.

Via Computer World

 

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