Search ASIA Travel Tips .com 30 March 2005

Virgin Blue’s International airline Pacific Blue is to offer in-flight personal entertainment movie players to its passengers travelling between Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

The digEplayertm is a completely self contained portable on-demand entertainment system, programmed with a selection of movies, children’s favourites, recent TV shows and music videos.

Pacific Blue will begin phasing the players in from late May and will have them available on all flights from 13 June. Guests will be able to rent a digEplayertm for A$12.00.

Virgin Blue Chief Executive, Brett Godfrey, said, “We are excited that Pacific Blue will be the first airline in the Southern hemisphere to have these innovative systems on board. They have been a great success and are hugely popular on airlines that have introduced them in the USA and Europe and we are confident that our Guests [passengers] will also appreciate having them as an entertainment option to help make their flight even more enjoyable.”

The personal entertainment unit will compliment Pacific Blue’s existing audio entertainment.

Brett Godfrey continued, “The team is focussed on ensuring Pacific Blue looks beyond offering great value fares and outstanding service to being a step ahead of the rest in terms of providing additional product enhancements to suit the needs of its Guests. The strategy is in line with the airline’s “user pays” approach that offers the same level of service to all travellers at a small cost, without impacting on the carrier’s low cost base and its ability to provide sustainable long term low fares.”

The digEplayertm unit has 7” screens and is battery powered. Designed to sit on the fold down tray table, the units are easily shared between passengers with headphones that can be split between two. The digEplayerstm are encrypted and have a 40 gigabyte hard drive with state of the art technology developed by the supplier, APS of Tacoma, Washington.

Sixty digEplayerstm will be available on each flight with the movie content being updated every 60 days.