In-flight magazine to go digital, wireless

• Tweet

OSLO, Norway, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A Norwegian airline and an in-flight magazine publisher say they will use WiFi to bring airline passengers new options in in-flight entertainment.

Norwegian Air Shuttle and Ink, which provides magazines for about 30 airlines around the world, said they would debut the new system next year, The New York Times reported.

Using Norwegian Air Shuttle's free WiFi service, passengers will be able to access content including music, video and travel articles from the carrier's in-flight magazine on their smartphones, tablets or laptops.

"We wanted to rethink the whole way we organize travel content, from the beginning to the end of a customer journey," Stine Steffensen Borke, marketing director at Norwegian, said.

Norwegian says its free WiFi service is available on 80 percent of its fleet of 68 planes.

However, there are no plans at the moment to phase out the airline's paper version of its magazine, Steffenson Borke said.

"I'm still surprised by how many people read the magazine," she said. "At the moment, it's still a useful channel for us."