As we move back to travelling, there is always the need to be entertained in the air at 35,000ft. Royal Jordanian has expanded their “SkyConnect” wireless in-flight entertainment (W-IFE) service to its Embraer E175 and E195 aircraft.
The service is base on the Bluebox Wow Wireless IFE platform.
It was originally launched in 2019 with a deployment of Bluebox Wow on its Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft. The expansion has been developed in conjunction with BlueBox, through which Royal Jordanian has received upgraded Bluebox Wow boxes across the fleet as well as a refresh to the passenger interface, and conversion to app-free DRM content delivery, which removed a previous requirement for passengers to download an app before flights to access “SkyConnect” on board.
As the fleet is used flexibly across different countries, regions and segment lengths, Bluebox has also introduced new functionality to the crew management tool, giving RJ cabin crew the ability to select different content sets, depending on the flight length. Restricting the content provided on short-haul flights to more appropriate short-form content (i.e. no long movies) will help the airline save content licencing costs.
The Bluebox Wow is a device that provides wireless content streamed to passenger devices in any aircraft cabin, including a wide range of film, TV, audio, games, and other digital content.
BlueBox Wow box delivering content wirelessly as shown at Aircraft Interiors Expo – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
Bluebox Wow is a discrete, portable, lunchbox-sized unit stowed securely in overhead bins.
Bluebox WOW W-IFE system – Image, Bluebox
In Quotes
Royal Jordanian Vice Chairman & CEO, Samer Majali said:
“The addition of Bluebox’s wireless IFE solution to our Airbus fleet proved very quickly to be a valuable service enhancement enjoyed by our passengers, and so we wanted to expand this to our passengers flying on our Embraer aircraft as well – ensuring that wherever our passengers are flying they have access to our “SkyConnect” service. The flexibility of Bluebox Wow – and the excellent support we’ve had from Bluebox – has helped us ensure that as we emerge from the pandemic, our passengers will return to a rich in-flight experience and we’re making the most effective use of W-IFE on board.”
Kevin Clark, CEO, Bluebox said:
“When we first deployed Bluebox Wow on Royal Jordanian’s Airbus aircraft, we’d said it was a natural fit,”
“The fact that we’ve now extended the service to RJ’s Embraer fleet flying shorter routes demonstrates the flexibility of Bluebox Wow – and the ability of our team – to serve different requirements and to continually enhance the value of our solution for our customers.”
Offering entertainment options, whilst keeping costs low
Whilst in a lot of cases, In-Flight Entertainment is free at the point of use, for the airline, there is are the costs of purchasing hardware (be it a streaming box or an IFE screens, cabling and server, the maintenance of the system as well as the licencing costs for the content of the IFE systems.
The Bluebox system reduces the need for seat-back screens, with passengers using their own devices to stream content from. In addition, with the tuning options per route, costs can be controlled. In addition, the device can be removed from the aircraft easily if needed for maintenance purposes.
It’s a clever solution that seems to be gaining traction.
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