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In-Flight Gambling Trial Ready for Take off on Ryanair
8
November 2005
Ryanair, one of
Ireland’s low-cost airlines, has plans to launch a trial
in-flight gambling system in the spring of 2007.
According to the Chief Executive of Ryanair, Michael
O’Leary, this in-flight game experiment will also
include arcade games, and will be launched 12 months
after the on-board mobile phone carrier trials take
place, which is planed for release in the spring of next
year in 2006.
Last spring, in the month of April 2005, Ryanair made
the decision to abandon their first experiment that
involved an in paid-for in-flight entertainment. The
purpose of this new form of entertainment was to include
Hollywood film, as well as children’s cartoon at an
additional cost to passengers. Not thrilled with the
idea of paying an extra fee for this extra
entertainment, Ryanair scrapped the idea and began to
think of other ways they could feature new forms of
entertainment that would catch their customers’
interest.
O’Leary commented that the recent decision that was made
to experiment with the idea of in-flight gambling
through the use of portable consoles is credited to the
extraordinary success of their scratch card offer.
O’Leary also dismissed any suggestions that the gambling
entertainment that will be featured on the Ryanair
flights will discourage families from flying with their
airlines.
O’Leary stated to the public that Ryanair recognizes
customers have the right to object taking their
airlines, but he also said “good luck, somebody else
will have your seat”. O’Leary made this comment after
Ryanair launched their promotion of a 2 million “free”
seat sale.
It will be interesting to see how well their in-flight
gambling trial succeeds, as it is very likely that it
won’t be long before in-flight gambling is a common
entertainment feature on a variety of flights across the
world.
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