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Bob Cummings, WestJet executive vice-president of guest experience and marketing, said he welcomed the decision on the new system because some of WestJet’s flights have been left without any in-flight entertainment while WestJet was mulling which type of service to use.

“Our guest satisfaction, with respect to in-flight entertainment, obviously went down. With respect to overall satisfaction and people identifying problems, obviously that took a hit,” Mr. Cummings said in an interview.

“We’re very eager to get back on the path here,” he added.

It has been nearly two years since WestJet’s chief executive, Gregg Saretsky, first detailed the airline’s plans to move to a wireless in-flight entertainment system to the Financial Post in an interview in the spring of 2012.

At the time, WestJet faced a serious dilemma after the satellite provider for its current Live TV system, Bell Canada, was planning to narrow the footprint of its satellite feed so that its signal was only available in Canada and a few hundred kilometres across the U.S. border.

This prompted WestJet to stop installing its seatback Live TV product in its new aircraft until a decision was made on the new wireless system.

Mr. Cummings said part of the hold up on making a decision was the result of the board taking a good hard look at the existing wireless systems in the market.

He said WestJet eventually decided to go with a system that allows WiFi connectivity from a satellite rather than from the ground up because, in part, it is supportive of the carrier’s ambitions for expansion overseas in the next decade.