Australian budget carrier Jetstar made aviation history on Wednesday by allowing its passengers from Auckland to Melbourne to use iPads made available by the air carrier during their flight.

The device, though, is not free. Passengers would have to rent it for $10 to $15 depending on the route and the aircraft. The $10 rental fee is for those on board Jetstar's Airbus A320 and A321 while those riding the A330 would pay $15 if they rent the gadget on board.

The tablet computer made by Apple would be available to other Jetstar passengers within Australia for trips longer than two hours as well as in selected trans-Tasman and international routes beginning Thursday.

However, only 24 iPads will be available for every flight, which will be rented on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Jetstar have been planning to introduce the use of iPads for over a year. It initially bought 3,000 iPad 1 and iPad 2 units which come were pre-loaded movies from major Hollywood studios, TV shows, ebooks, magazines and music clips.

The air carrier will refresh the content monthly. Among the movies for the first cycle are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Parts one and two), Horrible Bosses and Friends with Benefits., TV shows include The Office, The Big Bang Theory, The Wiggles and Bananas in Pyjamas.

There would also be preloaded apps and games like Real Football, Ashphalt 5, Uno and The Settlers from local Australian publishing houses such as Gameloft, but no Angry Birds game on it.

To prevent passengers from filching the device which costs about $500, it has an RFID chip that cabin crew could scan the cabin for missing iPads.

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