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.