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Southwest Airlines offers free in-flight TV for passengers

US-based Southwest Airlines has introduced a brand new service in its Wi-Fi enabled planes. From now on, the company will allow its passengers to watch TV for free on their personal devices while they fly on the carrier’s planes. The new service is a part of the ‘TV Flies Free’ offer which started on Monday, July 1, 2012.

For the new service, satellite TV provider Dish network will be offering customers 14 live TV channels and up to 75 on-demand shows on the 425 Wi-Fi equipped planes of the airline. The service was previously priced at $5. However, as of now, passengers will be able to stream the content on iPhones, iPods, iPads and other Internet-ready devices.

The chief marketing officer of the airline, Kevin Krone said, “Southwest Airlines continues to innovate and evolve our on-board customer experience. We started with Wi-Fi and now have expanded to television. This new offer puts free television in the hands of our customers.” The new service will be powered by Row 44, which is a provider of satellite-based in-flight Wi-Fi.

The provider first launched LiveTV on Southwest in summer 2012. For years, other airlines like Virgin America and JetBlue Airways have been offering free live TV to their passengers, except they have offered this on the back of the seats.