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Virgin America Puts the Music in Your Hands With Free Spotify Access

October 27, 2015  | Written by Jordan Yerman
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APEX Insight: On the heels of a Netflix collaboration, Virgin America is furthering personalization of the passenger experience with partnerships that offer destination-specific in-flight entertainment: Spotify, for curated city-themed music playlists and The New York Times for up-to-date local news. “We’ve always seen that guests want both – Wi-Fi and curated seatback content,” said a Virgin America spokesperson.

Virgin America has teamed up with Spotify and The New York Times to instantly personalize your in-flight entertainment experience. As passengers listen, they can read from a curated collection of live-updated Times content, including breaking news from the business, travel, technology and most-viewed sections. To access the entire publication, passengers can sign up for a free, 30-day All Digital Access subscription of the Times, which can be used at any altitude. Same with Spotify: passengers only need to sign into the service with their own account.

Until March 2, 2016,Wi-Fi access to both Spotify and The New York Times will be free to any connected device aboard Virgin America’s high-speed ViaSat WiFi-equipped aircraft flying on mainland routes.

Explore and Devour

While ViaSat hasn’t made it to Virgin America’s entire fleet yet, the carrier will still likely win points for PaxEx consistency: every Virgin America flight offers the Red in-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) platform, so passengers aren’t rolling the dice on ending up in an old-school cabin. With its Red Beta IFEC upgrade, Virgin is also partnering with Netflix to let passengers take binge-watching to glorious new heights of gluttony, with entire series available with a tap of the screen. (A personalized-IFEC pioneer, Virgin was ultra-early to market with in-flight gaming; see the APEX Experience Content Issue to find out more.)

While an airline’s decision towards doubling down on seatback IFE or pushing content to a passenger’s own device may speak to a fork in the road, each with its proponents and detractors; Virgin America insists on having it both ways: “We’ve always seen that guests want both – Wi-Fi and curated seatback content. We never saw a drop-off in people engaging with Red since we launched Wi-Fi. We’ve always believed it’s important to provide guests with the same entertainment options they would have if they were sitting at home on their couch – and most people use our IFE while also using their devices,” said a Virgin America spokesperson.

Sonic Transcontinental Tour

Virgin America was keen to establish a sense of place before passengers even reached their destinations: “Spotify provided song pools based on hundreds of millions of playlists to help Virgin America curate over 60 city-inspired music mood lists that will inspire and excite guests for their destination,” said our Virgin spokesperson.

Those song pools went pretty deep, and Virgin America clearly relished the task of coming up with a total of more than 60 playlists for 21 different cities. Here are some examples:

Bespoke at Sea Level
Virgin America is taking personalized travel beyond the cabin as well: a recent partnership with Airbnb saw passengers aboard the carrier’s inaugural flight to Hawaii get a chance to stay with Sir Richard Branson. Said our spokesperson, “The promotion is one of the most popular digital promotions we’ve hosted – with 65,000 entries received in just a few weeks.”

The future of IFEC is very much in the passenger’s hands – with more help from the airline than some may have anticipated.