Hardware-bound software.
Most IFE platforms ship the OS WITH the screen. You can't update the experience without re-certifying the box.
The software platform for inflight entertainment
Modern IFE, on the screens you already have.
Skyloft is the app layer that runs on the airline's existing seatback — controlled from the passenger's phone in the browser, no app to install, or by touch with no phone at all. Films, music, podcasts, news, in-seat games, a live flight tracker and destination guide. Offline-first, hardware-agnostic, no rip-and-replace — with a BYOD path on the roadmap for aircraft with no screens.
Designed to run inside your existing IFE · BYOD path on the roadmap
Why now
Inflight entertainment is stuck in 2012.
The screen in the seatback was designed before the iPhone matured. The hardware refresh cycle is twelve years; the software ages with it. Airlines and IFE vendors are stuck running on platforms with no app surface, no engagement layer, and nothing to ship product through.
No app surface.
Airlines have nothing to deploy through. There's no place to add a destination guide, a duty-free flow, a multiplayer game — or anything net-new.
Locked to its own seat.
Screens don't talk to each other. No multiplayer, no shared session, no handoff to the passenger's phone.
Getting connected
The pairing moment.
Before anyone presses play: the seatback shows a QR and a six-character code, and the passenger's phone opens the remote in the browser — no app to install. Scan the code, or type it with the vehicle name. That's the whole handshake.
A QR and a short code — scan it, or read the code across to your phone.
no app — opened in your browser
Opens in the browser, no install. Scan the QR, or type the code and vehicle name.
The platform layer
We're the software. Your IFE is the screen.
Skyloft is the application platform that runs on top of the IFE you already have. The seatback path ships today; the screenless-fleet path is the forward road.
Embedded — on the seatbacks you already have
Embedded mode. Shipping.
Skyloft runs on the airline's existing seatback. The passenger pairs over a QR on the same screen — controlling it from their phone's browser, no app to install — or uses the seatback as a touchscreen with no phone at all. To sit inside a vendor's IFE menu, Skyloft is designed to integrate via a small host adapter (per-platform adapters for Panasonic eX1, Thales AVANT, Burrana rPlus and similar are planned). Nothing certified is ripped out.
- Seatback touch
- Browser remote
- Host adapter (planned)
BYOD — for aircraft without seatbacks
BYOD mode. On the roadmap.
On aircraft with no seatback screens — narrowbodies, regionals — the passenger's own device becomes the screen: join the cabin Wi-Fi, open a browser portal, no app install. Same content catalogue, same launcher, same offline-first stance. This BYOD path is the next build; embedded ships today.
- Screenless fleets
- Cabin Wi-Fi
- Browser portal
- Roadmap
Hardware-agnostic by design. Skyloft does not sell screens, does not certify boxes, and is not the IFE.
How it works
Scan. Pair. It's yours.
- 01
Scan — or just touch the screen.
Point your phone's camera at the QR on the seatback and it opens in your browser — nothing to install. No phone, or a flat battery? Use the seatback as a touchscreen instead. Pairing happens on the plane over the cabin network; the internet is not in the loop.
- 02
Pair.
The screen is yours for the flight. Your phone becomes the remote, the keyboard, and the controller — all in the browser. Switch devices, or move to the seatback, and your premium follows the seat.
- 03
Pick what you want.
Films, series, music, podcasts, news, and in-seat games. The session lives with the flight and dies on landing.
The product
Everything Skyloft ships.
A real product, today. Films and series stream from the aircraft cache; music and podcasts pull on the schedule before the door closes; news refreshes 00:00 UTC; games run server-authoritative on the onboard server. Original-designed tiles only — no implied catalogue partnerships.
Watch & listen
Films, series, music, podcasts.
Cached on the aircraft before push-back. Stream over the cabin LAN with no satellite link required. Skyloft Originals (the ATLAS placeholder in our visual) ship from day one. Licensed catalogues slot into the same launcher as deals close — they are not a prerequisite.
- Films
Public-domain classics, CC cinema, Skyloft Originals.
- Series
Episode resume across devices, season detail, continue-watching.
- Music
Browse by album / artist / genre. Persistent player across the launcher.
- Podcasts
RSS-pulled shows cached for the flight; episode resume.
Read
Daily news, refreshed on schedule.
Open news feeds pulled and cached by the cloud, served from the aircraft. Versioned by date so the launcher shows yesterday's bundle when the cabin can't reach the cloud. Refresh cadence is configurable — the default is 00:00 UTC.
- Today's news
Top stories grouped by category.
- Freshness banner
"Refreshes 00:00 UTC" rendered alongside the bundle.
Play
In-seat games.
Chess, trivia, and solitaire, scored on the onboard server with zero connectivity — an interactive surface most current IFE platforms simply do not have. The edge holds the rules and the answers; the client only reflects them.
- Chess
Server-validated moves on the seatback.
- Trivia
Server-scored rounds; the question bank is cached on the aircraft.
- Solitaire
Klondike — a quiet single-player classic.
Your phone
Scan, and your phone is the remote.
Scan the QR and the remote opens in your phone's browser — no app to install. It becomes the remote, the keyboard, the controller, and the audio transport (play/pause/skip), since the cabin is mostly a heads-down environment. A native app is an optional enhanced tier for frequent flyers, not a requirement.
- Scan to pair — no install
Camera QR or a six-character code. Pairing is cabin-local: no internet, no account.
- Remote + keyboard
D-pad, transport, full keyboard.
- Game controller
Move and answer from the phone.
Premium, per flight
Free has plenty. Premium unlocks the premium tier.
Free already covers a real catalogue, all the games, news, flight tracker, and the destination guide. Premium unlocks the curated premium tier — select films, albums, and shows. Per-flight only: no subscription, no account, expires on landing. Pay from the phone in seconds.
- 1 hourFrom £4.99
A premium film and a stretch of albums.
- 3 hoursFrom £7.99
The middle option for typical short-hauls.
- Full flightFrom £9.99
Lasts until landing — anchored to live flight context. Extends on delay.
For airlines and IFE vendors
A platform you can ship on — without buying hardware.
Honest framing: Skyloft is a software partner for the application layer. We don't replace your IFE vendor, we don't certify avionics, we don't sell boxes. We bring the engagement + ancillary-revenue surface your existing platform doesn't have.
No hardware. No certification.
Skyloft is designed to run as an app inside your existing IFE platform via a host adapter (planned per platform), with a BYOD path on the roadmap for aircraft without seatbacks. Nothing flies that wasn't already flying.
Deploy in months, not years.
The onboard server is a software install — no new wiring, no panel changes. Embedded mode rides on the IFE vendor's hosted-app slot; BYOD mode needs only the cabin Wi-Fi you already have.
Offline-first by construction.
Catalogues, news, and audio are cached on the aircraft. Pairing is cabin-local. Skyloft works the same with no satellite link as with one — the cloud is for fleet config and per-flight billing, not for serving content.
Real ancillary revenue, built in.
Per-flight premium (1h / 3h / full-flight) paid in-browser from the phone — the card never touches your servers and there's no app-store cut — or granted by crew on the airline's own POS for a passenger without a phone. Premium follows the seat across a device swap and rides through taxi and deplaning. No accounts, no subscriptions: it dies with the flight.
An engagement layer your IFE doesn't have.
In-seat games, a live flight tracker and destination guide, and a persistent audio mini-bar so passengers don't lose their place when they browse — engagement metrics most IFE platforms cannot produce.
Software partner — last mile only.
Skyloft is the application layer. Your IFE vendor stays the IFE vendor. Your maintenance contract is unchanged. We integrate on top.
How it's built
Cloud curates. Edge runs. Phone pairs. The flight works offline.
Three tiers. A small cloud builds and syncs content bundles, billing, and entitlements down to the aircraft. An onboard edge node per aircraft is the source of truth in flight — fully offline, server-authoritative. Screens and phones talk to that edge over the aircraft's isolated cabin network — the same kind of segregated onboard network wireless IFE already uses, separate from avionics. No public internet in the loop after the door closes.
Offline-first
Content, entitlements, sessions, and game state all live on the edge. The cloud can drop off the network and the flight is unaffected.
Cabin network only
Phone, screen, and edge talk over the aircraft's isolated cabin network — segregated from avionics. The same kind of network wireless IFE already runs on.
Server-authoritative
Routing, entitlements, scoring, clocks, and sessions are all decided by the edge. Clients never assert truth — they reflect what the server says.
Stateless cloud control plane.
A small cloud builds content bundles (films, series, music, podcasts, daily news), runs Stripe Checkout for per-flight premium, issues entitlements, and syncs everything down to the fleet. It is NOT in the flight loop — it can be offline and the inflight experience is unaffected.
Edge node, one per aircraft.
An onboard server is the source of truth in flight. Caches every byte of content locally, hosts the games engine, owns routing and per-flight session state. Pairing, playback, and multiplayer all work with zero connectivity.
Isolated cabin network.
Phones and screens reach the edge over the aircraft's cabin Wi-Fi — the same isolated onboard network wireless IFE already uses, segregated from avionics. Real-time control rides a websocket; content streams over HTTP. No public internet required.
Screen + phone, paired per seat.
The screen runs on the seatback — directly, or designed to embed inside the airline's existing IFE via a host adapter (planned per platform). The phone scan-pairs to that seat through its own browser (no app install) and becomes the remote, keyboard, and controller. One isolated session per pairing; the session ID is the identity (guest model, no passenger accounts).
Host adapter — designed to embed in existing IFE.
The integration layer. A documented seam in the codebase with a reference implementation. Per-platform adapters for Panasonic eX1, Thales AVANT, Burrana rPlus, and similar are planned integrations — they slot into the same interface; they are not shipping today.
Per-seat session isolation.
Nothing a passenger does spills into another seat or another flight. Premium dies on landing; the flight context provider knows when landing is. The test suite proves the isolation property — it is not a marketing claim.
Your seat is your seat.
Server-authoritative isolation between seats and between flights. Verified by the test suite — not a marketing claim.
Talk to us
See it on your fleet.
Skyloft is built for airlines and IFE vendors planning their next inflight platform — designed to embed inside an existing seatback, with a BYOD path planned for aircraft without one. Tell us about your aircraft and we'll set up a demo.
- Live walkthrough on real seatback hardware, or browser demo if you prefer.
- Reference architecture for your fleet, sized to your route network.
- Conversation with the engineering team — not a deck.