Opera is to supply its browser for the TopSeries in-flight entertainment system Thales sells to operators of the larger Boeing and Airbus planes. So next time you are browsing the web at 30,000 feet, you know who to thank.

The company says its browser was selected because it can be deployed easily in so many languages, including Arabic. Opera describes this as its "internationalization features" (don't ask us), and notes that this includes support for bi-directional scripts.

Brad Foreman Thales' VP of in-flight entertainment systems said: "The Opera product is an excellent fit to our system architecture. It provides the flexibility and utility that our customers are asking for."

At the time of writing, Opera had not released the value of the deal, nor the length of the contract with Thales. ®

Related stories

Opera preview bakes in BitTorrent (9 February 2006)
HP goes a bundle with Netscape (4 October 2005)
Opera tunes up to overtake Firefox (30 September 2005)
Firefox loses momentum (30 September 2005)
Opera gives away ad-free browser (20 September 2005)
Exploit for unpatched IE vuln fuels hacker fears (19 August 2005)
Firefox loses ground to IE (15 August 2005)
Opera bakes in BitTorrent (7 July 2005)