AirFly Pro 2 vs AirFly SE

The problem both solve

Seatback entertainment systems use a wired 3.5 mm jack. Wireless earbuds do not have a plug. An AirFly sits in the jack, takes the audio and rebroadcasts it over Bluetooth to whatever you are already wearing — which is the difference between using your own noise-cancelling headphones on a long flight and using the airline’s.

There is no other reliable way to do it. A few newer aircraft publish Bluetooth audio natively; most of the fleet you will actually fly does not. The adapters we track, ranked covers the category.

The published figures

The two-headphone feature is the real difference

If you travel with a partner, a child, or anyone who wants to watch the same film, the Pro 2 pairs two sets of wireless headphones to one seatback screen at once. The SE pairs one.

That is not a spec-sheet nicety on a long flight — it is the difference between two people sharing a screen with their own headphones and one person handing over an earbud. For a solo traveler it is worth precisely nothing.

The part of the Deluxe box that matters

Older long-haul seats use a two-prong jack rather than a single 3.5 mm socket. A standard adapter plug will not sit in one. The Deluxe package publishes an included airline adapter for exactly that, plus a travel bag.

If the fleets you fly are new, you will never need it. If you fly older widebodies, it is the component that decides whether the thing works at all — and buying it separately afterwards costs more than the difference.

What Twelve South does not publish for the SE

A price, a weight, or a warranty term on a manufacturer page we could read. The product is current and widely sold, and the figures we would need to score it on value simply are not published where we can cite them — so this page prints “Not published” rather than lifting a number from a retailer listing.

For the Pro 2 Deluxe, Twelve South publishes $69.99, a two-year warranty and 0.036 lb. At that price and term the arithmetic works out to $34.99 per covered year, which is poor by this site’s standards and entirely normal for consumer electronics.

The verdict

Buy the Pro 2 Deluxe if

You fly with another person, you fly older long-haul aircraft, or you want the version with nothing missing from the box. It is the one we would pack, and the included airline adapter is the reason.

Buy the SE if

You fly alone on modern fleets and want the function without the extras. A published 20+ hours is plenty for any single flight, and the only thing you give up is the second pairing and the adapter you may never need.

Buy neither if

You do not use seatback entertainment. If you watch your own downloads on your own device, your earbuds already connect to it and an adapter solves a problem you do not have. The things worth leaving behind makes that case more broadly.