Russian flag carrier Aeroflot announced that on-board entertainment, such as the streaming of films and music through an on-board Wi-Fi connection, will no longer be available on the company’s Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft.
According to a statement on Aeroflot’s official Telegram channel, this is the result of ‘foreign providers refusing to provide the service’.
The company is already working on a domestically-made solution and the streaming services will soon be available again, the statement added.
Meanwhile, Aeroflot recommended a number of alternatives to on-board entertainment, such as reading books, leaving thank-you notes in the guest book, sleeping or trying to meditate.
According to Aeroflot’s website, the same streaming services are provided on all of the company’s aircraft: Airbus A350, A330, A320, Boeing 777 and Boeing 737. The company did not specify why the service is going to be unavailable on narrow-body jets only.
Following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, numerous countries imposed sanctions that prohibited selling or leasing aircraft and their parts to Russian companies.
As a result, the companies ended up flying their aircraft without support from the manufacturer, often refusing to return their jets to Western lessors and scrambling to find third-party providers of parts and maintenance.
The withdrawal of aerospace companies from the Russian market was mirrored in the IT sector, as numerous companies – including streaming giants Netflix and Spotify – stopped providing their services in Russia.