228179605 a647115d1cAs of June, travellers passing through Brussels, Milan Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino airports can download three audiobooks for free.

The service will be offered over Wifi at these airports for passengers on Oneworld airlines. People can download audiobooks to their laptops, smartphones and PDAs via the airline’s websites. There is a choice of 40 titles in English, Dutch, French & Italian. An email will be sent to passengers prior to the flight to remind them of this offer.

Why are they doing it? Well it promotes Oneworld’s Travel Stations which enable users to download travel advice & information onto mobile devices as well as, of course, charge up those devices. In an interesting move perhaps, these Travel Stations are not exclusive to Oneworld passengers.

Its also a customer service initiative, as the airlines seek new ways to keep passengers happy in the air. Some have expressed concern that it might cut into airport retail sales but certainly if Heathrow’s personalised inflight magazine is anything to go by, it certainly shouldn’t. Indeed happy passengers tend to spend more if anything.

Link : Oneworld Travel Library

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