Aircraft inflight entertainment server providing language translation of announcements

A method performed by an aircraft inflight entertainment (IFE) computer server, the method comprising:

• receiving an announcement including digitized speech and/or text in a first language generated by a crew member or by a controller;
• processing the announcement, through a language conversion module, in the first language to output a set of translated announcements each corresponding to a different one of the set of passenger preferred languages;
• translating, through the language conversion module, the announcement from one language to an available set of translated languages;
• identifying a set of passenger preferred languages based on information obtained for passengers onboard an aircraft and served by the IFE computer server;
• and
• for each of the passengers who have a preferred language that is different from the first language of the announcement, identifying a VDU and/or PED associated with a passenger and routing through an aircraft cabin network one of the translated announcements in a passenger preferred language of the passenger to the VDU and/or PED associated with the passenger.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, having stored thereon a computer program, comprising instructions which, when executed on at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to carry out operations comprising:

• receiving an announcement including digitized speech and/or text in a first language generated by a crew member or by a controller;
• processing the announcement, through a language conversion module, in the first language to output a set of translated announcements each corresponding to a different one of the set of passenger preferred languages;
• translating, through the language conversion module, the announcement from one language to an available set of translated languages;
• identifying a set of passenger preferred languages based on information obtained for passengers onboard an aircraft and served by an IFE computer server;
• and
• for each of the passengers who have a preferred language that is different from the first language of the announcement, identifying a VDU and/or PED associated with a passenger and routing through an aircraft cabin network one of the translated announcements in a passenger preferred language of the passenger to the VDU and/or PED associated with the passenger.