Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, has announced anotherlive television offering on ‘SkyHub’, it’snow popular inflight entertainment suite that offers passengers,for the first time in the world, full broadband connectivity to access internet, mobile phone services and, a global, live television service.
The national carrier and Sport 24, the 24-hour live sports channel produced by IMG Media, revealed itslatest addition to the airline’s onboard Global Live Television services. Broadcaster of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, Gulf Air passengers can watch uninterrupted Euro 2012 matches on-board flights from June 8th to July 1st.
Gulf Air Chief Executive Officer Mr. Samer Majali said, “It is another important milestone in our journey as we work to continuously improve our customer service and product offering, in particular in our latest inflight entertainment system, ‘Sky Hub’.”
“By providing our travellers with an opportunity to experience their favorite sport events, we are catering to our international sports fans across our network. In addition to broadcasting the Formula One™ races across the globe, we are now showcasing the Euro 2012 on our flights. Our valued customers can also enjoy a fully integrated broadband connectivity offering high speed internet, 3G-4G mobile data speed, voice over the internet (VOIP), streaming videos and the world’s first in-flight live TV satellite stream across continents.”
Richard Wise, Senior Vice President of IMG Media, said, “This is another premium event for the Sport 24 offering and will make airlines carrying the service a much more appealing proposition when passengers have the choice of carrier, whether by air or sea.
“We are in ongoing discussions to add more top quality events to the channel and are also talking with a number of airlines and cruise liners interested in taking the service,” he added.
Using Panasonic’s Global Communications Suite, Gulf Air offers two-way broadband connectivity at speeds of up to 50 Mbps enabling faster browsing, chatting and other internet based services. Gulf Air will offerdeeply immersive, content-rich entertainment in addition to live, uninterrupted television services on routes across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Travelers will no longer have to wait in anxiety until they land to find out scores from their favorite sporting events or news from around the world. Now they can watch the F1™ races from around the world on Sport 24, their favorite football teams on IMG Media’s Barclays Premier League channel or keep up with world events on favorite news channels such as BBC World News, BBC Arabic and Euronews.
Passengers are also able to browse the web at broadband speeds, and access social media services such as Facebook and Twitter. In addition, business travelers can access their virtual private network (VPN) to send and receive emails while watching live-news and stock market updates at 35,000 feet. They simply need to turn on their personal device, connect to the in-flight Wi-Fi network, and log into the service through Deutsche Telekom, the wireless internet service provider onboard.
