As a busy year of international travel draws to a close, the world’s largest international airline is revealing how passengers spent their time inflight, delving into data to dissect what exactly Emirates customers watched and listened to on journeys to and from 140 destinations around the world.

Most watched movies on ice in 2023

Customers craving top notch entertainment are spoilt for choice with Emirates ice, offering more than 6,500 channels of on demand movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, and even live TV to catch the international news and sport. From the expansive 2,000 plus Hollywood and international movies available, and all the best movies of 2023, amongst the most watched movies by Emirates customers around the globe were; visually stunning sci-fi film, Avatar: The Way of Water, Ticket to Paradise – a rom-com starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and the enduringly popular action movie Top Gun: Maverick. Long haul customers across the world also settled into box sets of movies, such as The Lord of the Rings complete trilogy and all four of the John Wick films.

After English language content, the top viewed international movies include two Bollywood action movies, Vikram Vedha and Bholaa, the French thriller La Syndicaliste, Korean drama Return to Seoul, and the 2023 Cannes Palme d’Or winner, Anatomie d’une chute from France. Arabic speakers tuned into Emirati film Khorfakkan - depicting the 16^th century invasion of the city.

Kids and perhaps kids-at-heart, tuned into a myriad of movies with the most popular choices in 2023 noted as Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Tom & Jerry Cowboy Up! Teen Titans Go! & DC Superhero Girls and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Most binged box sets and TV on ice in 2023

On long flights, Emirates customers loved to binge a box set, with exceptionally high viewership recorded for all seasons of HBO Max’s Succession and both seasons of The White Lotus. Within the comedy genre, Emirates customers showed a preference for beloved sitcoms – Friends, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Big Bang Theory, while in drama – many travellers selected two historical dramas The English, and Women of the Movement, as well as suspense-filled drama Your Honor starring Bryan Cranston.

Trending TV in the Kids and Teens section included Schooled! – a sitcom set in the 90’s and the renowned SpongeBob SquarePants, while younger kids tuned into Australia’s Bluey and Hey Duggee and Supertato from the UK.

On Emirates ice live TV channels including Sport 24, BBC World News, CNN and Sky News Arabia, customers tuned into an array of sports and social events including the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Formula 1® races, NFL Superbowl, English Premier League, Augusta Masters, ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, Rugby World Cup 2023, Wimbledon, DP World Tour and the US Open Tennis. The single most watched sports on Emirates live TV in 2023 was the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.

The tuneful tastes of Emirates customers in 2023

From a library of over 3,000 albums, more than 500 curated playlists, over 40,000 tracks and more than 4,000 hours of music and podcasts – Emirates’ customers showed their sophisticated sides with one of the most popular albums on ice revealed as Mozart’s Chamber Music. Ed Sheeran’s album Subtract was also in the top three, but unsurprisingly the top spot was scooped by the indomitable Taylor Swift and her album Midnights. Kids couldn’t get enough of ice Juniors Music with Cocomelon, Bluey, Kidzbop, and the Encanto soundtrack holding the top spots. The most popular playlists onboard Emirates’ flights included the Arijit Singh Playlist, ABBA’s Timeless Pop Anthems and the Best of Fairuz and Khaleeji Classics. In Global Music, the top trending regions customers accessed were India, Korea and Africa, with the most listened artists places held by Jimin from Korea, Burna Boy from Nigeria and SB19 from the Philippines. Some audiophiles went for content beyond music and showed love to the Rain, Sleep & Nature Sounds Playlist while relaxing at 40,000 feet.

Emirates customers embrace Happiness & Wellbeing content

Catering to every mood and personality, Emirates ice also provides a dedicated area for Happiness and Wellbeing content which is popular with flyers. Nature relaxation series’ invite audiences on soothing, majestic journeys to natural paradises, and an array of explorative documentaries discover ways to live life to the fullest. Emirates customers in 2023 tuned into Living Wild: How to Change Your Life, a series where Sophie Morgan goes on a road trip across the UK to meet people united by a desire to build new lives around the things they love. Storytelling with Gian Power: What’s your life story? also proved popular, as TLC Lions founder, Gian Power dives into the powerful world of storytelling and advises the audience how their personal story can become their greatest strength. 

Finishing 2023 on a high with Emirates ice

For those jetting off for the holiday season and beyond, Emirates is closing out 2023 with the biggest movies of the year on ice. Customers can enjoy the top-grossing box office movie of 2023 – the fantasy-comedy blockbuster Barbie, available in French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. Barbie is also available with ‘Closed Captions’ (CC) and ‘Audio Description’ (AD), offering accessibility to the visually impaired, with narration that describes what is happening on screen. Emirates offers up to 130 movies with AD and more than 250 with CC.

Action aficionados can catch Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, a high-stakes thriller partly filmed in the UAE, available on ice in up to 8 languages, or The Equalizer 3 starring Denzel Washington. Customers can even watch the entire trilogy on ice. Adrenaline enthusiasts will enjoy Gran Turismo, based on the true story of racing driver Jann Mardenborough, a successful gamer who becomes a real-life racer. ice also has an exclusive interview with Jann Mardenborough speaking about the making of the movie in the Emirates World podcast.

Kicking off world-class entertainment on ice in 2024

Looking ahead to 2024, Emirates customers can expect to see many exciting developments on ice from exclusive new content partnerships to new next-generation inflight entertainment systems that offer memorable cinematic and personalised passenger experiences on the incoming 50-strong fleet of A350s. In January, customers can tune into Expend4bles, plus the complete box set of all 4 movies, The Creator – a visually impressive sci-fi from the director of Rogue One and the hit kid’s movie Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie. In February, ice will have Oppenheimer, the award-winning film from Christopher Nolan, Priscilla - Sofia Coppola's biographical drama about the wife of Elvis Presley, amongst many more additions to the world’s largest entertainment library in the sky.