Virgin Australia has come under fire over its poor in-flight entertainment options on domestic flights. Virgin’s Boeing 737 aircraft aren’t fitted with seatback entertainment screens. Instead, passengers can stream content to their own mobile devices via the Virgin Australia Entertainment App.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Virgin in-flight entertainment being streamed to passengers’ mobile devices. But our members have found that Virgin’s entertainment App lacks content. Further, many of the movies and TV shows available for viewing are second-rate programs.
I just got off a return trip SYD – OOL and the in flight entertainment on the app was woeful! The amount of content is drastically less than before, the quality was also lacking and there was almost no TV shows at all which are much better for a short flight when you can’t fit a 2 hour movie in. The TV shows that were offered were mid season (such as from ep 8) and not even from the start, so pointless watching unless you watch the show already.
As well as having a lack of content, Virgin’s in-flight entertainment is also not updated frequently enough. Many of Virgin’s frequent flyers have already viewed most of the content on the Virgin Australia Entertainment App.
I’m more concerned with the turnover rather than the amount. The amount of shows and movies they have is decent enough, the problem is they don’t rotate them so anyone who flies even semi-regularly has nothing to watch as they’ve seen everything
If you’re a regular Virgin Australia flyer, it may be worth loading a few extra movies onto your device or brining a book when you fly.
Virgin in-flight entertainment is delivered via the Virgin Australia Entertainment app on all Boeing 737 services. These aircraft are used on most domestic flights, as well as services to New Zealand, Bali, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. Thankfully, Virgin offers a greater range of in-flight entertainment content via seatback screens on its Airbus A330s and Boeing 777s. These planes are used on flights to Los Angeles, Hong Kong and some services to Perth.
Qantas in-flight entertainment is delivered via Q-Streaming on around half of Qantas’ Boeing 737s, Boeing 717s and domestic A330 aircraft. Passengers can similarly stream content to their own devices using the Qantas Entertainment App. But Qantas offers a vastly superior range of content via Q-Streaming than Virgin does through its Virgin Australia Entertainment App.
By comparison, last time I took a QF flight with Q-streaming there was so much interesting content that I couldn’t decide what to watch.
What do you think of Virgin Australia’s in-flight entertainment? Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: What happened to the in-flight entertainment?
