As small as it might look but the entire setup of the flight entertainment system costs about $3 million with and individual setup being as much as around $1000 per every inch of the screen. So rather than putting in so much of money in the whole entertainment setup the some of the airlines are offering onboard streaming services for the passengers that can be accessed on their personal devices.
Etihad is the first airline to have started this trend followed by the American Airlines and the United in 2017. The UAE based carrier is upgrading its narrow body airbus A320 and A321, which would include new wireless streaming entertainment app.
Prior to the boarding passengers need to download the E-Box Stream app and then they would be able to access 300 hours of free content on their smartphones and tablets. These would include the movies, tv series, latest entertainment shows and HBO and Universal shows.
The travellers would be able to enjoy this service from August for upto 5 hours of flight duration from Abu Dhabi. Thus one can expect a better inflight experience and much more entertainment than just being glued to the seatback screens. The mobile streaming would create a much better traveller’s experience and thus making the entertainment flexible and also fit in the budget limitation to be used in other fruitful actions. Hope that we can expect this change in all the airlines soon.