Allegiant - The Game Plane

Allegiant - The Game Plane

Airlines have hosted everything from fashion shows and comedy performances to music concerts on their airplanes. The latest onboard micro event is a television game show set and shot onboard flights operated by Las Vegas-based low-cost carrier Allegiant Air, using passengers as contestants competing for prizes from cash to luxury vacations at resorts in Las Vegas and Orlando.

Called The Game Plane – and described as part quiz show, part game of chance – the show is filmed entirely in-flight with real passengers competing to win prizes on the spot. The first season of The Game Plane includes 40 episodes and premiered September 20 in over 75 percent of U.S. television markets. Filming was done on regularly scheduled flights, with potential contestants alerted, pre-interviewed and prepped in the gate areas before boarding. Passengers who didn’t want to participate, or chance being caught on camera, could request to be seated in sections of the plane away from the action. The game is mostly trivia, but also includes a variety of active challenges, such as in-flight putting contests. One of the games played during the show is called “How Smart is Your Co-Pilot,” and sends one half of a couple to an isolation booth — in this case the airplane lavatory — while the other half answers relationship trivia questions the partner emerging from the lavatory must try to match.

“We like doing things differently and the majority of our passengers are going on vacation,” so letting a film crew shoot an inflight game show seemed like a great match, said Brian Davis, Allegiant’s VP of Business Development.