Meta announced last year it was partnering with German airline Lufthansa to bring Quest 3 headsets to passengers. Now, after its apparent success, the company hopes to expand in-flight XR entertainment programs to even more airlines.
Meta first released its long-awaited Travel Mode last year, letting anyone with a Quest 2 and above use the feature to offset the discrepancy in motion between the user and the airplane itself, which has long-foiled VR users by land, air and sea.
Building on its work with Travel Mode, last June Meta released a pilot program (no pun intended) to bring passengers in the Lufthansa Allegris Business Class Suite a Quest 3 across selected flights, allowing passengers to do things like watch movies and TV on virtual screens, spatial videos and select 360-degree videos, do guided meditation, and play games like Connect Four and chess.
Meta says the Lufthansa program has been such a success, having served up Quest 3 in-flight entertainment to nearly 4,000 travelers, it hopes to expand to even more airlines in the near future.
“This activation marks a pivotal moment in the development of our Travel Mode and immersive services,” says Meta Director of Entertainment Content, Reality Labs, Sarah Malkin. “We’re now focused on expanding this offering to more airlines and optimizing our product suite.”
The company hasn’t said specifically which airlines it’s aiming to work with, although you can bet it will be a Business/First Class-only feature, which typically also includes perks like lay-flat seats, noise-cancelling headphones, gourmet meals, premium alcohol—the list goes on.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen airlines leverage XR headsets as special perks. In 2015, Australian airline Qantas was one of the firsts to test out complementary access to Samsung Gear VR as in-flight entertainment for first class passengers. Other airlines to adopt VR headset pilot programs included Air France, Iberia, British Airways, and Singapore Airlines—all of which have since been discontinued.
