Cathay Pacific pushes inflight magazine onto iPad, Android tablets

Cathay Pacific is joining other airlines in moving its inflight magazine from print to pixels.

The monthly Discovery magazine will be available as a free iPad app, with the first edition hitting Apple's iTunes Store on Wednesday August 2nd.

Featuring the same content as the print edition, but bolstered with embedded videos, high-resolution images and interactive features, the digital edition of Discovery will appear as a title in the iPad's Newsstand with the option to be automatically updated each month.

However, the magazine will also be viewable on non-Apple tablets – including Android, Windows and BlackBerry – along with laptops, desktops and smartphones in an 'app-free' edition at the discovery.cathaypacific.com/magazine website. (For the technically-minded, this serves up the magazine in device-independent HTML5 format.)

This option will allow users to browse the magazine live or download it onto their laptop or tablet to read in-flight.

The website content centres on two key editorial pillars to provide passengers with useful travel information: a suite of snapshot guides to Hong Kong across a range of 'hit lists', including dining and hotels plus activity and entertainment options; and “new and now summary” guides covering 44 Cathay Pacific destinations.

The print version of Discovery will continue to be available onboard all Cathay Pacific flights.

For more information, visit cathaypacific.com/discovery.

David Flynn

David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.