The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Jetstar is planning to rent iPads, preloaded with content such as videos, e-books, magazines, games and music on domestic flights at $10 a time.

An interesting idea, which makes me wonder how suitable the approach would be for hotels. Any worries about guests walking off with the iPad could be taken care of with a deposit. For upscale hotels, iPads are already becoming a popular value-added service. For budget properties, iPad rental is both a potential revenue stream, and a more cost effective way to implement an advanced multimedia service (cheaper than adding a system made up of TVs, computers, DVD players, etc).

It will be interesting to see how this will be approached in the 2- and 3-star world.

Anthony Green – June 2010