Though it does not offer onboard Internet to passengers, easyJet previously trialled wireless inflight entertainment from Spanish firm Immfly(which is now partnered with Boeing on a new Boeing Digital Direct solution). The low-cost carrier’s Bistro & Boutique catalogue features meals, snacks, and refreshments. “From searching for a flight to making sure they can eat what they want on board, we are excited to bring this new technology to market as a means to give customers more of what they want and reduce waste across the airline.” “We are always looking to enhance our customer’s travel experience,” says easyJet chief commercial and customer officer Robert Carey in a statement. Passengers can access the Epax retail experience by simply connecting to the onboard wireless network through their own browsers.
“Of course if the pilot is successful, we would anticipate rollout across the full fleet.” “AirFi are not a formal partner for the trial but rather a supplier to gate for the trial,” says a gategroup spokeswoman, adding that the trial will initially be conducted in a select number of hubs. “Customers will be presented with more of what they want, based on factors such as flight destination, flight duration and time of day, as well as insights generated by a wealth of inflight retail data,” explains gategroup.Īs a hardware supplier to gategroup, AirFi will provide portable, battery-powered onboard Wi-Fi units for the Epax trial. Epax will use machine learning and data driven innovation to offer a smarter inflight retail experience. The pilot program will be implemented by airline catering giant gategroup and its analytics partnerBlack Swan Data.ĭata sits at the heart of the “Epax” branded intelligent platform. European budget airline easyJet plans to trial a new digital solution which will enable customers to browse, order and buy retail items on board via their mobile devices.