Wellness Briefing: Fiji Airways’ new in-flight wellness program brings wearables, red light and wellness shots to travel

Fiji Airways leans into on-board wellness to better appeal to North American travelers

Launching June 1, Fiji Airways is rolling out a first-of-its-kind wellness program that includes health shots and wearables, plus red light therapy in airport lounges. 

“[We’re] trying to keep ahead of the crowd and make sure we’re listening to our customers,” Fiji Airways CEO and managing director Paul Scurrah told Glossy. “We’ve got a very young and modern fleet, so people are getting a very good travel experience already, but what we’re getting is people saying, ‘It’s great, but what’s coming is this greater focus on wellness, so what are you guys doing in that space?’” 

Fiji Airways offers 11 weekly services from the West Coast of the U.S. to Fiji and three from Vancouver. Its international competitors include American, Alaska Airlines, Virgin Australia, Qantas, Air New Zealand and Jetstar. 

Scurrah joined the company in October 2025. His CV includes serving as CEO and managing director of the Virgin Australia airline and Pacific National, an Australian rail freight company. 

“We know through the resorts we work with here in Fiji, and there are many beautiful resorts with more coming, that wellness is stepping up the ladder in terms of importance,” Scurrah said. 

Scurrah pointed to a recent study from the hotel chain Hilton that found 56% of leisure travelers do so to rest and recharge. “That really aligns well with wellness,” Scurrah said. “So we decided to say to our passengers and our customers that their [wellness journey] starts when you get on board [the plane], not when you arrive [in Fiji].” 

The program, called FlyWell, will launch with five partnerships. This includes Magic Mind, which will provide nootropic mental performance health shots to promote sleep or energy, plus Vital Red Light, which will offer red light therapy within airport lounges. Then there are the wearables, which include circulation devices from Firefly Recovery, blue light glasses from Ra Optics and EMF protection devices from Aires Tech.

The wellness menu was co-curated by Fiji Airways brand ambassador Joseph “Da Rulk” Sakoda, a Fijian fitness coach and thought leader with 253,000 Instagram followers. 

The program will launch on June 1 and will run for two months in a beta test on flights between Nadi, Fiji’s main island, and Los Angeles or San Francisco. The offerings will be free for all business-class passengers during these two months, before rolling out to all passengers beginning in August. 

The airline is planning to structure the August 1 rollout as optional services that passengers can book ahead of time or during a flight. The airline is planning to add small charges to these services, which can be booked individually or as a bundle, but those fees have not yet been announced. 

“I align it to the sort of expectation that came with Wi-Fi [being added to air travel in the 2000s],” Scurrah said. “When Wi-Fi was first rolled out in-flight, it was a massive luxury, and people thought this was a real bonus. … Now it’s a base expectation.” 

He told Glossy that on-board wellness will be just as ubiquitous soon. “We see a similar journey with wellness offerings,” he said. “As [wellness practices] become more and more of the norm, I think the biggest issue [in air travel] in three to five years will be those who are not doing it.”

The brands and products were selected to help combat jet lag, body stiffness, sleep disruption and other common travel issues. The beta test is designed to gauge interest. 

Scurrah declined to share the details of the business partnerships with the five featured brands. 

The company is leveraging social media and press, plus the online reach of the five partnering brands, to alert consumers. The company is also extending all products to Fiji Airways’ staff so they may speak about the offerings authentically. 

“We’re doing it in a fairly modern way,” he said. “You won’t see massive billboards or newspaper ads or anything like that. This is the sort of thing that we think will spread through the partnerships we’ve got and through the more modern social media channels.”

Elsewhere, airlines like Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic and Air Canada are betting on wellness in unique ways. In 2018, Cathay Pacific added guided, in-seat yoga, which focuses on stretching, to its in-flight entertainment selection; while the latter brands have partnered with Headspace for guided meditation starting in 2011 and 2025, respectively. Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines began partnering with Canyon Ranch wellness resort in 2018 to offer healthy in-flight meals.

Fiji Airways launched in 1951 and is currently owned by the state of Fiji, with minority ownership held by Australian airline Qantas Airways. In 2024, the last year its earnings were available, the airline carried 2.3 million passengers, up 5.1% year over year, and generated $838 million in operating revenue. 

Scurrah told Glossy that the majority of its passengers travel to Fiji from North America, Australia and New Zealand, with rapidly growing interest from Asia-based passengers.

“Airlines operate in a crowded market … [and] need to have a point of difference or a unique offering to stand out from the crowd,” Scurrah said. “Leading the way is something we’re very proud of. There’ll be more [wellness offerings on Fiji Airways] to come. We’ll stay ahead of the pack with our offering.”

Executive moves: 

• Danielle Porto Parra is the new president of Xponential Fitness, the California-based boutique fitness franchise company behind Club Pilates, Yoga 6, Pure Barre and others. Parra’s CV includes Petco and Go To Foods, the Atlanta-based owner of fast food brands like Auntie Anne’s and Jamba Juice. 

News to know:

• A rush of new longevity clinics and fitness concepts has been announced for the London market as the region experiences demand for more wellness services. For example, boutique fitness brand The Method recently unveiled The Club, a holistic wellness center in London’s Notting Hill that offers lounges, ice baths, fitness classes and more. Meanwhile, Tramp, a members-only nightclub, announced the May launch of Tramp Longevity Club in London. The new space will offer recovery and wellness modalities in a social setting. Finally, Virgin Active Health Club, a luxury gym from the airline company of the same name, is relaunching its London-based gym as a social wellness club in July. New offerings include a co-work space, recovery modalities and more. 

• Gummy supplement brand Imaraïs Beauty has been acquired by Healthy Extracts, a Florida-based, vertically-integrated supplement manufacturer. Imaraïs Beauty was founded in 2021 by fitness influencer Sommer Ray and longtime supplement industry executive Aaron Hefter. The brand launched at Target in February and also sells DTC and through Amazon. The deal is estimated at around $20 million.
  
• Playlist, parent company to ClassPass, MindBody and Booker, has launched a new fitness booking and management app called Kite. The new app was designed for fitness operators managing scaling multiple brands and will support the operational complexity of a portfolio-scale organization, according to Playlist. “Kite gives multi-brand operators the visibility, control, and flexibility that they’ve been lacking, while advancing our broader vision of providing the infrastructure behind the world’s most meaningful in-person wellness experiences,” Fritz Lanman, CEO of Playlist, said in a statement. 
  
• There’s a new advocacy group pushing for guardrails across women’s health tracking. According to the group, the new Women’s Health AI Consortium is the first industry body dedicated to establishing shared benchmarks, ethical standards and transparent evaluation methods for artificial intelligence in women’s health. The group was formed by Ema EQ, an AI women’s health platform, and Willow Innovations, a maternal health company. “Women deserve AI that is clinically safe, culturally aware, and designed with them, not just for them,” Amanda Ducach, CEO of Ema EQ, said in a statement. 

Stat of the week:

Gen Z has embraced digital wellness tools, according to a new study. Gen Z is just as likely to seek health advice from AI tools as from family or friends, according to a 4,000-person study conducted in early 2026 by Kantar, a marketing data and analytics business, on behalf of healthcare company Abbott. Around 69% of Gen Z respondents have used a health tracker or app in the last 12 months. Of those, 93% report a positive change in health habits, with 58% — higher than other generations — stating a lasting change, according to the survey. 

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Listen in: 

Amazon wants to be a beauty powerhouse. Is a big beauty sale the answer? On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner are joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss the strategy around the e-commerce giant’s beauty sales and assortment, and how it’s attempting to position itself as a prestige beauty retailer on par with the likes of Sephora and Ulta Beauty.

Need a Glossy recap?

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