Singapore Airlines (SIA) introduced a new, in-flight e-mail service ahead of competitors last week for passengers travelling between Singapore and Los Angeles, using technology supplied by United States company, Tenzing Communications.
Tenzing also helped Cathay Pacific Airways and Air Canada build similar e-mail services on their aircraft. Cathay Pacific is expected to announce its email service within the year.
However, the SIA system represents a much bigger overhaul of its in-flight entertainment system. The new e-mail service is integrated to the aircraft's Matsushita Avionics in-flight entertainment system to provide e-mail access, a library of cached Web pages for passengers and a video and audio-on-demand service in all classes of service.
Passengers will be charged for sending and receiving e-mail. The fee structure is not known.
Passengers can play multiplayer network PC games, regardless of where they are seated on the flight. Presently, there are 25 games to choose from.
"What is so special and outstanding about these developments and features is that we will extend the new audio-and-video-on-demand system beyond first and business class from July this year, to include economy. This was not technically feasible before this," said Michael Tan, executive vice-president of Singapore Airlines.
