So tell me…
What do you usually do on long flights? Do you take the opportunity to have a long snooze or listen to your ipod? Maybe you watch a movie on your laptop or soothe your cranky child…
I, for one, always read the inflight magazine cover to cover! Every time I turn another glossy pages, see a beautiful image and read another poetic article, my bucket list grows longer. But I’m usually done with the magazine in an hour, tops. And then, I proceed to shift uncomfortably in my seat for the rest of the journey.
In a bid to end in-flight boredom, Jet Airways has launched an initiative that allows guests to access content on the move. It’s called JetScreen and I recently had a chance to review it.
JETSCREEN
Jet Airways introduces a new, first-of-its-kind, wireless streaming in-flight entertainment (IFE) service called Jet Screen to help make every second of your flying experience a pleasant one.
You may have experienced IFE a long time ago on certain domestic flights until it was discontinued. Or recently on international flights via screens attached to the seat in front of yours.
However, Jet Airways is the first airline to provide this new service on domestic routes at this time, offering 220 hours of digital content on passengers’ own smart devices.
With JetScreen, you can access a variety of in-flight entertainment offerings directly on your personal device (phone, ipad or laptop) and choose from movies, shorts, games and music.
To enjoy this service you’ll need to have the AirTime Player app installed on your Android or Apple device which is available to be downloaded for free from PlayStore, It’s advisable to have the app downloaded and installed before your flight, as there is no Internet connection for downloads on the aircraft.
Once onboard, turn on flight mode, enable Wi-Fi and connect to the Jet Airways network. Then launch the AirTime Player App and you’re good to go!
The service is currently complementary for all Jet Airways passengers. It isn’t available on board all their flights yet, but there are plans to extend it to the entire fleet progressively.
The IFE consists of around 100 music playlists, Bollywood movies, Short videos, five games and a flight tracker. I tried all the games – of course!
WHAT I LOVED:
Instant connection – WiFi woes are everywhere. Thankfully, I didn’t experience anything but super-fast, seamless internet on my outbound or inbound journey. I connected instantly with no password, OTP or pesky additional pages opening. Worth mentioning here is that you can’t use the WiFi for any other form of internet browsing or instant messaging.
Subtitles in Bollywood movies – I was surprised to see not a single Hollywood movie on the app. My hindi-speaking ability is pretty basic and hence, I don’t watch a lot of Bollywood flicks. I noticed a lot of recently talked about movies such as Sarabjit and Airlift – all of which had English subtitles to perhaps, make up for the lack of Hollywood movies.
Flight Tracker – The last flight I saw this on was on the one to Canada. It gives real-time info on how close you are to your destination, remaining time, altitude and more.
Latest entertainment – Jet Airways kept it current with the latest albums by Eminem and Coldplay, to name a few. There was a good mix of Hindi and English music with more newer than older songs. Win! If you like shows like Comedy Nights with Kapil and Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai, you’d enjoy the range of Hindi shows that you can stream.
WHAT WOULD MAKE IT BETTER
No one I could see was using JetScreen during the flight, and I think that was because the announcement was lost among all others – the mandatory safety messages, amenities… you know the drill. The passengers on either side of me started trying to connect to WiFi once they looked into my phone. A peppier announcement would help.
Hollywood and animated movies – JetScreen would be much more fun if it had entertainment to suit everyone’s interests! Some Hollywood rom-coms, thrillers and action movies would make a world of difference to passenger’s in-flight experience. Animated movies for kids and kids-at-heart were missed.
Sitcoms – Personally, shows that can get me glued to my screen for hours are sitcoms. Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Two Broke Girls, Castle, Suits – there are just some of the shows that can get people’s mind off a cramped middle seat, a queazy tummy or an annoying neighbour. I’d really like to see some of these on board!
Less song skipping – I listened to quite a lot of music on board and couldn’t help notice that there was a lot of skipping every few seconds.
More music variety – Currently, every music genre has one entire album by one artist. ‘International Pop’ featured a dozen songs by Maroon 5 and Easy Listening had the entire Norah Jones’ album, ‘The Fall.’ A better compilation of songs by different artists under the same genre would add variety and interest to the mix. The weekly hits from American Top 40 would be ideal!!
Apart from these, I think it would be cool to have some podcasts, audio books and real-time news steams! I love a good podcast!
All in all, boredom is not an option while flying Jet Airways. Since the amenity has just been launched two months ago, I’m sure it will feature a better mix of entertainment as time goes by. Charge your phone all the way to 100% and carry along your portable charger.
For more info, you can visit the JetScreen page
Happy flying!
*This is a sponsored post for Jet Airways. However, views, as always, are my own.