Thales transforms the inflight shopping experience

• Thales and Airfree partner to bring the airlines a new revenue opportunity by introducing a state of the art e-Commerce platform that extends the airport duty-free shopping experience into the cabin.
• The Airfree marketplace will be the first to offer duty-free services with ground fulfilment at more than 350 airports worldwide, expanding the current onboard offering from just a few, to thousands of items and many new product categories.
•  Passenger experience is unrivaled and profitability is optimized thanks to proprietary technologies and built-in analytics.

We are at a pivotal time in our industry where the introduction of new and disruptive technologies are creating more personalized, consumer-centric services, providing airlines fresh opportunities to maximize passenger satisfaction, loyalty and revenue. With a clear focus on critical transformative technologies, now more than ever, Thales is leading the way in this digital transformation.

Thales enables airlines to grow inflight revenue generation opportunities through new and innovative shopping concepts, and an ecosystem of partners to deliver services. Today, Thales announces a partnership with Airfree, an inflight marketplace provider, to offer airline customers a state of the art onboard shopping platform. The Airfree marketplace will be the first to offer duty-free services with ground fulfilment at more than 350 airports worldwide, expanding the current onboard offering from just a few, to thousands of items and many new product categories.

With the Airfree platform, airline passengers receive an elevated onboard shopping experience with faster browsing similar to online shopping at home.  Hundreds of airport offerings are seamlessly incorporated into a single marketplace and made available through the inflight entertainment (IFE) system on seatback and personal electronic devices (PEDs). This allows passengers to browse and purchase items from an extensive airport offering in a single place, single session and single  payment, with product choices tailored to the passenger route. Passengers can also utilize airline points for payment and enjoy exclusive offers based on frequent flyer status.   

The Thales/Airfree airline branded marketplace reduces or eliminates the logistics, weight, and manpower required for traditional onboard duty-free items, while tremendously increasing passenger choice and airline revenue. With proprietary bandwidth optimization technology, the Airfree platform drastically reduces satellite data consumption compared to traditional technologies.

Launched exclusively with Thales, this service will make its commercial debut with a world-leading airline by the end of the year.