Virgin Australia adds ABC News to inflight screens and iPads

Virgin Australia will begin screening ABC news bulletins across its domestic and international fleet early next year.

Touting the move as giving travellers inflight access to "Australia's most trusted news service", Virgin's movie follows Qantas' recent decision to switch from Channel Nine to Sky News and Foxtel as its inflight entertainment partners.

Read: Qantas’ new inflight entertainment takes off

The prerecorded made-for-Virgin packages of four separate 90-second news bulletins will be added to Virgin's inflight wi-fi streaming system, allowing passengers to stream bulletins directly to their own devices "from early 2015."

Three 15-minute ABC News bulletins covering news and weather, sport, business and finance, were also introduced to Virgin Australia’s wide-body fleet earlier this month, through the airline’s award-winning seatback entertainment system, Red.

“The Virgin brand was born in entertainment and has a long history of leading this space" said Virgin Australia’s Chief Customer Officer Mark Hassell.

“We continue to enhance the customer experience both on the ground and in the air and by delivering valuable, unique and trusted Australian news content on a daily basis we will ensure our customers reach their destination informed of the latest current affairs."

Also read: How to swap Virgin Australia Velocity points and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles

Follow Australian Business Traveller on Twitter: we're @AusBT