When traveling by air, there are lots of things that can contribute to a great travel experience. One of those things is inflight entertainment, since it’s otherwise easy to get bored when flying. In this post I thought it would be fun to take a look at the airlines that offer the best inflight entertainment.
In this post:
What makes for good inflight entertainment
Airlines have come a long way on the inflight entertainment and connectivity front. So when it comes to good inflight entertainment, I’d like to think that it’s important to consider seat back and streaming entertainment, as well as inflight Wi-Fi connectivity.
What makes good for seat back or streaming entertainment?
- There’s the general availability of seat back entertainment; on what percentage of the fleet does the airline offer seat back entertainment?
- What’s the quality of entertainment like? How many movies and shows are there, how easy is the system to use, are the monitors high definition, and are there any other cool features?
- Is there streaming entertainment? I tend to think this is less important if you have seat back entertainment, and that it’s more important if an airline lacks that
What makes for good inflight Wi-Fi?
- Obviously it’s nice to have high speed Wi-Fi that’s actually usable for things like surfing the web and streaming
- However, there’s also something to be said for an airline offering free Wi-Fi and/or messaging; after all, that’s going to have the widest appeal, so it’s not just for those who are looking to work
The airlines with the best inflight entertainment
With the above out of the way, I figured I’d share what I consider to be the world’s five best airlines for inflight entertainment. Essentially when you factor in both seat back entertainment and Wi-Fi, which airlines have the overall best offerings?
I’m not going to rank these airlines, because I think which is best depends on what you value most. Instead I’ll share why I consider each of these airlines to be among the best for inflight connectivity.
With that out of the way, here are my top five picks, in no particular order…
Emirates Airline
Emirates has seat back entertainment on every single plane in its fleet, featuring the ICE inflight entertainment system (which stands for Information, Communication, Entertainment). In my opinion, ICE is hands down the best inflight entertainment system in the sky, in terms of ease of use, quality of programming, and variety.
Emirates offers 6,500 different programs, with everything from the latest movies, to complete seasons of TV shows, to live TV, to podcasts, to a tail camera (on its A380s). I’ve never been bored on an Emirates flight.
While Emirates does an amazing job with seat back entertainment, Emirates’ Wi-Fi is less impressive. The airline uses OnAir, which has low speeds. On the plus side, it’s at least reasonably priced, and many passengers even receive free Wi-Fi. On top of that, all Skywards members receive free inflight messaging.
Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines is probably the most well-rounded global airline when it comes to inflight entertainment, based on the current state of its fleet.
When it comes to seat back entertainment, the airline offers seat back televisions throughout its fleet, with the exception of a small number of 737-800s inherited from SilkAir. Singapore Airlines has the KrisWorld entertainment system, which offers nearly 2,000 on-demand movies and TV shows, as well as live TV. I love how Singapore Airlines also has complete seasons of dozens of TV shows, which makes it easy to binge watch.
I’d say this is the second best inflight entertainment, only slightly behind Emirates’ ICE system. The area where Singapore Airlines really excels, though, is with its inflight Wi-Fi. The airline offers unlimited free Wi-Fi to all passengers who are KrisFlyer members, and to first and business class passengers even if they’re not part of the loyalty program.
Singapore Airlines is the only major global airline to offer free Wi-Fi to all passengers without any major limitations.
JetBlue Airways
JetBlue is the OG when it comes to inflight entertainment, plain and simple. For one, the airline has seat back entertainment on every aircraft in its fleet. This entertainment system has a selection of movies, plus DIRECTV, SiriusXM, Peacock programming, and more.
Frankly the screens on many JetBlue aircraft are a bit low quality at this point, and I don’t find the system as such to be cutting edge. But still, you can’t beat such consistency.
The area where JetBlue really shines, though, is in offering high-speed, no strings attached, free Wi-Fi. The airline partners with Viasat, and offers free Wi-Fi on all aircraft. You can connect as many devices as you want, and you don’t even have to be a member of JetBlue’s loyalty program. What’s wild is that JetBlue has now been offering unlimited free Wi-Fi for over a decade, so the airline has been in a league of its own.
Delta Air Lines
Delta is by far the best of the “big three” US carriers when it comes to inflight entertainment. The airline offers seat back entertainment on most of its mainline fleet (with the exception of Boeing 717s), and that comes in the form of the Delta Studio system.
Delta Studio offers over 1,000 hours of inflight entertainment, with a library of movies and TV shows, as well as live TV, a map feature, and more.
Another area where Delta really excels is with inflight Wi-Fi, as the airline offers free Wi-Fi to all SkyMiles members on most mainline, narrow body aircraft. The catch is that as of now this isn’t available on select narrow body jets, as well as on all regional jets and wide body jets. By the end of 2024, it’s expected that free Wi-Fi will be expanded to most planes, which is an exciting development.
Air Canada
Air Canada doesn’t get much recognition for this, but I think the airline is highly underrated when it comes to its inflight entertainment. For one, the airline has seat back entertainment on an incredible number of jets — the airline even has seat back entertainment on many of its regional jets.
Air Canada also has a massive entertainment selection, with over 2,500 hours of entertainment, including everything from movies, to TV shows, to live TV. Heck, the airline is even retrofitting its narrow body jets with new entertainment systems that include tail cameras, which I love.
When it comes to inflight Wi-Fi, Air Canada doesn’t offer this for free, but at least it’s high-speed. The airline does offer free messaging on all flights to Aeroplan members, which is a nice feature, and a good way for most people to stay connected to loved one.
Bottom line
As technology continues to improve, many airlines are investing in inflight entertainment, but in different ways. Some airlines are investing in seat back entertainment, others are investing in streaming entertainment, others are investing in Wi-Fi, and some are investing in all of them.
Some airlines definitely stand out as being better than most, so the above are my top picks, as they’re all airlines on which I’m never bored.
What are your favorite airlines when it comes to inflight entertainment, and why?
For a minute I thought you were talking about live entertainment ;-)
It's an interesting list and I agree about AC, despite its other faults. On the flip side, I was very disappointed by the IFE choice on airlines that otherwise have a great reputation: Japan Airlines, ANA and Asiana all were sorely lacking and a big disappointment.
Delta over Qatar? Really?
For any Delta experts, is the content the same on long haul flights as on shorter ones? On my last Caribbean flight, the content was very limited and disappointing. I chalked it up to being on a very old 737
Seems a bit odd to discuss this topic and not mention the censorship. Many airlines censor their content, and some do so quite extensively. Personally, I would rather have fewer options, but actually be able to see them as they were intended as opposed to having thousands of shows that were all edited to avoid offence to religious fundamentalists.
Good point last time I flew QR I was surprised by how much was censored.
I was on an Etihad flight, my first on a Middle Eastern airline, and I decided to see if they censor any of the content, so I watched the latest (at that time) Pedro Almodóvar film and every bit of naked flesh was there on my seatback screen to see. I got very nasty looks from a young woman seated across the aisle behind me. I'm guessing she could see my seatback screen from her seat. Oops!
Flying AA narrowbodies (except for the LAA 319) I miss the map. When I do watch movies on a widebody (no 321Ts out of MIA) I find most of the movies only worth watching for free. The idea that someone would pay $15 to watch today's fare, with a few exceptions, is mind boggling.
TK has a good selection of movies and excellent wifi on the 350s and 787s.
TK has a good selection but they haven’t updated their music selection in years. They update the movies and TV shows but little else.
I guess this is very much a matter of personal taste.
I have just returned from a return trip Sydney-Europe with Emirates. That's 40+ hours in the air.
I could not find a single movie that I liked and ended up just watching all four seasons of Succession again (recommended) . Not to say that the content is not good - it's just ummmm, not really my thing.
One airline you left...
I guess this is very much a matter of personal taste.
I have just returned from a return trip Sydney-Europe with Emirates. That's 40+ hours in the air.
I could not find a single movie that I liked and ended up just watching all four seasons of Succession again (recommended) . Not to say that the content is not good - it's just ummmm, not really my thing.
One airline you left out is Qantas. In my mind the best inflight entertainment of any airline I ever flew with. That's by the way coming from a someone who thinks Qantas is underwhelming in most other aspects, from food to lounges to customer service.
How was the censoring? I made the mistake of trying to watch White Lotus again on an EK flight and some episodes were borderline incomprehensible with how much was cut out
I've never noticed censoring, even when I watched "Bros" (supergay) last year on EK.
Do they really censor?
Sad if that's the case, because their selection (and SPEED of the system) is magnificent.
Many years ago I watched a movie on Delta (Donnie Darko) and, like your experience with White Lotus, it made no sense. I thought it was just a bad movie. Later I saw it again and discovered that the movie had started with a plane crash that had been edited out. And, if you've seen the movie you know it was crucial to the plot. Clearly the didn't want to show a plane crash -...
Many years ago I watched a movie on Delta (Donnie Darko) and, like your experience with White Lotus, it made no sense. I thought it was just a bad movie. Later I saw it again and discovered that the movie had started with a plane crash that had been edited out. And, if you've seen the movie you know it was crucial to the plot. Clearly the didn't want to show a plane crash - especially on those old drop down screens.
An entirely different and more logical form of airplane censorship.
The main thing I noticed was that some swearwords were silenced (not beeped). Given that this is Succession, there were a lot of those, and coming to think about it - a good proportion was not censored. Not sure that there is a system to the madness... Seems pretty arbitrary.
I agree, Mike. Qantas might have crap service but they have a wide choice of movies in HD on a large screen and they aren't censored.
Emirates might have a lot of product but not much worth watching as they censor the films which I then won't watch. Violence is okay but not sex or nudity. In the first White Lotus, even the scene with the dump into the suitcase was cut and the...
I agree, Mike. Qantas might have crap service but they have a wide choice of movies in HD on a large screen and they aren't censored.
Emirates might have a lot of product but not much worth watching as they censor the films which I then won't watch. Violence is okay but not sex or nudity. In the first White Lotus, even the scene with the dump into the suitcase was cut and the scene when Murray Bartlett's character gets sprung in his office was cut too, making the rest of the series incomprehensible.
I'm a video snob (please don't hate me) so a 4K IFE would top the list. I think only ANA and JAL has them.
Bit on the side, but still regarding entertainment: Do the Dreamliners come with the same type of tail cam as A350s?
@ Daniel -- Unfortunately not that I know of. I can't think of any airlines that have tail cameras on the 787.
Thanks, Ben. I've got a reward booking with a whole lot of hours aboard BR and NH Dreamliners, better load up my ipad!
For people who travel around Asia a lot, I would probably also include Cathay as being one that has a pretty extensive range of IFE, especially if you understand a few different Asian languages.
Surprisingly, the Japanese airlines seems to drop the ball here in that both JAL and ANA tends to have quite limited offerings.
Definitely agree. CX is, imo, only second to SQ in its IFE offering in APAC, and industry-leading globally along with the aforementioned carriers
I agree, Cathay has one of the best inflight entertainment for sure! It has HBO Max and Disney Plus, not sure there's any airlines can say they have both other than CX. In addition, as a aviation geek, I love the cameras on CX planes! As for wifi, I heard CX is going to start giving free wifi to First and Business later this year. They also won the 2023 Skytrax World’s Best Inflight Entertainment award.