Hasta La Gadget!

United Airlines and Microsoft announced in a joint press release today that Zune would be the exclusive provider of in-flight audio entertainment on all United Airlines flights, both international and domestic. If you’ve flown on United recently, you’ll note that the in-flight audio options are straightforward and standard across multiple airlines, including channels for classic rock, pop, and classical, and while those channels won’t go anywhere, the addition of music powered by Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace adds more variety and selection to your flight.

With the new Zune channels, United passengers will be able to enjoy music from movie soundtracks, a dedicated electronic dance channel, an opera channel, and a piano jazz channel that’s perfect for people anxious about flying. All of the playlists will be generated using music from the Zune Marketplace, and Microsoft is providing up to 21 different playlists of music with which to populate the new in-flight audio channels, and all of the playlists and channels will be listed in United’s on-board magazine, Hemispheres, for listeners to snag and take home with them if they hear something they absolutely have to download.