Forget those uncomfortable complimentary headphones that you have to turn up to 11 to hear any kind of conversation (but then deafen you every time there is an action scene) – there’s now a much easier way to enjoy your inflight entertainment.

Sucking it up and dealing with the cheap headphones provided by your airline (which may or may not have been used by a thousand other people) or painstakingly pushing the jack of your own headphones into the headrest just far enough that it works, but not so far it fills your ears with static, is one of those grim in-flight rituals we’ve just come to accept as part of flying.

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But for some airlines, it no longer has to be that way. As an Instagram user called Nikias just pointed out, on airlines like United you can now connect your own wireless headphones to the inflight entertainment system (even though the pairing technology is still, Nikias says, in “beta” mode). How? We’ll allow Nikias to take it from here. 

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A post shared by Nikias (@nikiasmolina)

Taking to Instagram this morning, Nikias showed how it is possible to connect your wireless headphones to your seat’s inflight entertainment system using bluetooth. “Airpods users stop scrolling right now,” the video reads.

“You can now connect your airpods to your airplane’s display. Tap on the Bluetooth icon. Reset your AirPods. They magically appear [on the screen] so tap on your airpods. You are now connected. Choose a movie. You can also adjust the volume and adjust noise cancellation.”

I’ve been asking for this for sooo long

— Kevin Jones (@KJLovepro) March 15, 2023

Nikias captioned the clip: “It’s on beta right now but works perfectly well.” His revelation was labelled a “game-changer” by commenters, with various social media users making remarks like: “Long overdue,” “finally,” “very cool” and “YESS.”

Other Twitter users claimed this pairing technology has actually been on flights for a while now. One said they saw it on an Etihad international flight 8 months ago, while another said “United announced this years ago.” 

No way finally about time wow

— Vanilla Icecream (@anjunabeachwave) March 15, 2023

On the other side of the coin, other people said it made no difference to them, seeing as they were iPad people anyway (see: comments like,”Nice, but airplanes’ entertainment systems are usually super slow and have limited content… I tend to just load up the iPad with movies or shows if it’s going to be a long flight”).

Yet others bemoaned the fact that this feature is not available on all airlines (“Not with Southwest or Delta”).

Here’s hoping it hops across the pond and embraces our ears Down Under soon.

This story originally appeared on escape.com.au. It has been reproduced here with permission. 

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