Part of the reason that Virgin America keeps getting voted the best domestic carrier is because of their Inflight Entertainment (IFE). Called RED, the seatback system lets passengers browse live television, catch up pre-recorded shows, watch movies and participate in a whole host of other fancy activities from ordering food to browsing around a real-time Google map.

To stay on top of the industry though, the airline needs to keep adapting their system, and they're starting the process this week with the announcement of the integration of the Lufthansa Systems' BoardConnect platform into their fleet.
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Basically, the BoardConnect platform is a completely new engine on top of which the RED system is going to live, meaning that the IFE will look similar moving forward but will be completely overhauled under the hood. The technology leverages a wireless internet network to maintain and update its data, which means that content will now be updated faster and at lower cost. In turn, this translates to a better experience for the passengers on board, which is always great to hear about.

Hopefully it also means that we can get our boys from Travel Talk churning within the RED channels once more.

BoardConnect technology has already been unrolled on the airplane #nerdbird. More updates are expected on later aircraft.

Filed under: United States