Air France is deepening its long-standing love affair with cinema and premium entertainment by adding an exclusive selection of Apple TV+ shows to its in-flight offering. Announced in mid-January 2026, the move brings more than 45 hours of curated Apple Originals to long-haul passengers, alongside a new high-speed wifi experience that gives travelers a one-week taste of the full Apple TV+ catalog on their own devices. For frequent flyers across the Atlantic and beyond, the partnership promises richer choice on seatback screens, smoother streaming at 35,000 feet, and a more seamless transition between watching on board and at home.
What Air France’s Apple TV+ Partnership Actually Includes
From January 2026, all Air France long-haul flights feature a dedicated Apple TV+ channel integrated directly into the airline’s in-flight entertainment system. Instead of relying solely on preloaded movies and TV series licensed from multiple studios, passengers now find a curated slate of Apple Originals presented as a recognizable branded hub within the interface. It marks one of the most visible upgrades to the French flag carrier’s entertainment catalog since its earlier tie-up with Canal+, and positions Air France among a small but growing group of airlines aligning with global streaming platforms.
The content package focuses on the first three episodes of several of Apple’s flagship series rather than full seasons. That structure serves two purposes. For Air France, it keeps onboard storage and licensing demands manageable while refreshing regularly. For Apple, it turns every long-haul cabin into a discovery tool, giving travelers a taste of some of the service’s best-known titles in the hope they will continue watching on their own subscriptions after landing. In total, the airline estimates that passengers now have access to more than 45 hours of Apple TV+ programming spread across drama, comedy, documentary, family and lifestyle genres.
Importantly, the Apple TV+ integration complements rather than replaces Air France’s existing entertainment lineup. The airline continues to offer a large library of feature films, including French cinema and festival favorites, along with international blockbusters, documentaries, music, podcasts, and a broad range of children’s programming. The new channel is simply another lane on a growing content highway, reinforcing Air France’s ambition to be seen as a premium cultural curator in the sky.
Which Apple TV+ Shows You Can Watch On Board
Travelers boarding a long-haul Air France flight in 2026 can expect to find a roster dominated by Apple TV+ hits with strong global recognition. Comedies like Ted Lasso, prestige dramas such as The Morning Show, and the workplace mystery Severance headline the selection and act as instant hooks for viewers who may already have heard of the shows but never pressed play at home. These crowd-pleasers sit alongside newer or more niche Apple titles that showcase the platform’s depth and appeal to different age groups and tastes.
For passengers who prefer a touch of French style even when watching international content, Air France and Apple have made space for series that elevate French culture and lifestyle. Productions such as Carême, centered on haute cuisine and French heritage, slot neatly into the airline’s longstanding commitment to promoting French art, gastronomy and storytelling on board. The mix reinforces the idea that the new Apple TV+ hub is not just about importing American or British series, but curating an experience that still feels distinctly Air France.
Nonfiction also has a clear presence. Nature documentary Prehistoric Planet, travel series The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy, and other factual titles bring cinematic visuals and light educational value to the cabin. Families will notice that children’s offerings are far from an afterthought. Apple TV+ kids’ favorites such as WondLa and The Snoopy Show are part of the lineup, ensuring younger travelers have access to age-appropriate, high-quality content drawn from recognizable franchises and trusted brands.
By limiting each series to its first three episodes, Air France encourages what might be called “sample viewing.” Passengers can try a pilot and decide whether a show is worth following once they return to their own devices on the ground. For some, that will be a mild frustration if a long-haul journey outlasts the available episodes. For many others, it is a low-risk way to discover a new favorite series while passing the hours between continents.
How the New Apple TV+ Channel Works on Board
The Apple TV+ content is woven into Air France’s existing in-flight entertainment interface, accessible via the personal screen at every long-haul seat. Rather than a standalone app, it appears as a branded content zone within the main menu, making it easy for passengers to locate without needing any technical know-how. Once selected, viewers see rows of series thumbnails similar to a streaming home screen, each leading to the first three available episodes.
Air France presents the shows in both French and English, with subtitles and closed-captioning options designed to support multiple accessibility needs, including for deaf and hard-of-hearing passengers. This dual-language approach reflects the airline’s global passenger mix while preserving the original performance and tone of Apple’s productions for those who prefer them in their original language. It also aligns with Air France’s broader entertainment strategy, which emphasizes multilingual access and cultural diversity across the catalog.
The airline has committed to refreshing the Apple TV+ selection on a roughly two-month cycle. That cadence reduces the likelihood that frequent flyers will repeatedly encounter the same episodes on every trip. It also allows Apple and Air France to respond dynamically to buzz around newly launched series or award-season contenders, potentially rotating in fresh titles that reflect the cultural moment. For passengers, it means that checking what is new on the Apple TV+ channel may become as habitual as scanning the monthly movie lineup.
All of this sits within a hardware ecosystem that Air France has steadily upgraded in recent years. Many of the carrier’s newest cabins feature 4K-capable, anti-glare screens and Bluetooth connectivity, allowing travelers to pair their own headphones for a more personalized audio experience. The Apple TV+ content benefits directly from this modern infrastructure, delivering sharp visuals and reliable playback that better reflect the production values of big-budget streaming originals.
One Week of Free Apple TV+ via Air France’s High-Speed Wifi
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the partnership for frequent travelers is what happens off the seatback screen. Through its new high-speed wifi portal, Air France now offers passengers a one-week period of free access to the full Apple TV+ catalog on their own devices. Once connected to the onboard network and authenticated through the portal, travelers can start watching Apple TV+ on smartphones, tablets or laptops during the flight, and then continue their viewing after landing using the same login.
This free trial structure gives the airline and Apple a way to stretch the in-flight experience across the entire journey. A passenger might sample the first episodes of Ted Lasso on the seatback screen, then switch to their iPad to continue watching over wifi, and keep going once they reach their hotel or home, still within the complimentary week. The model blurs the traditional boundary between in-flight entertainment and at-home streaming, positioning the flight as the spark that ignites longer-term engagement with Apple’s platform.
Air France’s high-speed wifi rollout is central to making this experience viable. The airline is progressively equipping its fleet with broadband connectivity powered by Starlink, the satellite network operated by SpaceX. Early deployments began on regional jets and narrow-body aircraft, and long-haul widebodies are steadily joining the program. The goal is to offer high-speed, low-latency wifi across the entire fleet by the end of 2026, at no extra charge in all cabins for core internet access.
For travelers, that means the Apple TV+ week-long trial is not restricted to a handful of flagship routes. As more aircraft come online with the new wifi system, the chances that any given flight will support the full experience increase. Passengers will still find traditional internet uses such as messaging, web browsing and social media available, but the Apple TV+ integration gives them a high-profile, content-rich reason to test the quality of the connection.
How This Fits into Air France’s Broader Entertainment Strategy
The addition of Apple TV+ content is not an isolated experiment but part of a broader, multi-year push by Air France to elevate its in-flight entertainment and reinforce its brand positioning as an airline that treats culture as seriously as comfort. For decades, the carrier has highlighted its links to cinema, including a longstanding role as an official partner of the Cannes Film Festival. Its aircraft already carry an extensive selection of French and international films, with particular emphasis on acclaimed titles and festival winners.
Strategically, Apple TV+ joins Canal+ as another premium content partner that helps Air France differentiate its long-haul product from that of competitors. The airline dedicates a significant portion of its catalog to French-language productions, but it also curates a wide array of global content spanning Hollywood blockbusters, European arthouse fare, Asian cinema and more. Adding a recognizable streaming brand with award-winning originals strengthens that mix without diluting the airline’s French identity.
The scale of the existing entertainment offer remains impressive on its own. Air France reports more than 1,500 hours of on-demand content on long-haul flights, encompassing hundreds of films and many seasons of television, as well as music playlists, podcasts, destination guides and wellness features such as guided meditation and seated yoga. From an operational standpoint, Apple TV+ is a relatively compact, clearly defined layer within that ecosystem, but from a marketing perspective it carries outsized impact thanks to the platform’s prominence in the streaming world.
Crucially, the airline’s investment in modern hardware and user interfaces underpins all of this. Across tens of thousands of seatback screens, Air France is rolling out a more intuitive, touch-based interface available in multiple languages. The Apple TV+ hub benefits from this improved navigation, encouraging passengers to explore beyond the default “new releases” row and delve into themed collections or curated recommendations. The goal is for viewers to feel less like they are using a dated in-flight menu and more like they are browsing a contemporary streaming platform.
What Passengers Should Know Before Their Next Flight
For travelers planning to fly Air France on a long-haul route in the coming months, a few practical points will help set expectations. First, availability is currently focused on long-haul flights with full in-flight entertainment systems. If you are flying a shorter intra-European or regional sector, you may not see the full Apple TV+ channel on the seatback screen, though the high-speed wifi portal may still give you access to the one-week Apple TV+ trial depending on the aircraft’s configuration.
Second, passengers should understand the limitations of the onboard Apple TV+ selection. By design, only the first three episodes of each featured series are available in the seatback system, and there is a finite cap on the total number of Apple TV+ episodes that the airline loads across its fleet at any given time. For many travelers, that will be more than enough to fill one or two flights with quality content, but anyone hoping to binge a complete season during a single journey will likely need to combine seatback viewing with streaming on their own device using the wifi trial or an existing subscription.
Third, while Air France is moving quickly to deploy high-speed wifi and the Apple TV+ integration, the rollout is still in progress. Not every aircraft will be equipped with the new connectivity and portal at the same time. Checking the specific aircraft type and its amenities before flying can offer a rough indication of what to expect, but last-minute equipment swaps are always possible in airline operations. Travelers who consider the Apple TV+ experience a priority feature should treat it as a strong likelihood on long-haul services rather than an absolute guarantee on every departure.
Finally, passengers will get the best experience by preparing their own devices in advance. Ensuring phones, tablets or laptops are fully charged, updating operating systems and the Apple TV app, and packing comfortable Bluetooth or wired headphones all make it easier to switch between the seatback screen and personal screens. Even if you intend to rely mostly on the aircraft’s in-built system, having a capable device ready allows you to take full advantage of the complimentary week of Apple TV+ access after you land.
What This Means for the Future of In-Flight Streaming
Air France’s move to bring Apple TV+ on board reflects a broader shift in how airlines think about entertainment. Where once a rotating selection of movies and television episodes was enough, the rise of streaming has reshaped passenger expectations. Many travelers now view content libraries through the lens of the platforms they use at home, and they increasingly expect that experience to follow them into the cabin, whether via direct integrations or stable connectivity that allows them to stream their own subscriptions.
By striking a high-profile deal with Apple and combining it with fleetwide high-speed wifi powered by Starlink, Air France is betting that premium branded content and strong connectivity will become as important a differentiator as seat design or inflight dining on long-haul routes. The carrier is not alone. Other airlines have begun experimenting with similar partnerships involving major streaming services. But Air France’s approach, with a clearly defined Apple TV+ hub on seatback screens and a structured free trial through its portal, illustrates how the model can be implemented in a way that serves both passenger convenience and platform marketing goals.
For travelers, the immediate benefit is simple: more to watch, in higher quality, with smoother ways to move between the aircraft screen and their own devices. Over time, the implications could be wider. If passengers respond positively, it will encourage both airlines and streaming providers to deepen their collaborations, potentially opening the door to broader catalogs, live event streaming, or even interactive, destination-specific content created specifically for the in-flight environment.
For now, the message for Air France customers is clear. On your next long-haul journey, you will not only find the airline’s familiar mix of French cinema, global hits and festival favorites, but also a polished Apple TV+ showcase and a chance to carry that experience with you long after the wheels touch down. In a competitive transatlantic and long-haul market, that blend of curated culture and cutting-edge connectivity is quickly becoming one of Air France’s most distinctive calling cards.