Beats Music will be free on Southwest Airlines alongside Dish TV

Beats Music, the streaming service that Apple acquired as part of a $3-billion deal this year, has a new partner in the skies.

Passengers on Southwest Airlines will be able to stream playlists from the Beats Music library free, the air carrier announced Monday.

It remains unclear how Apple plans to integrate Beats Music into its wider iTunes ecosystem, if at all. But painting an image of a big pair of Beats headphones on a Southwest jet to promote the new partnership suggests that the Beats brand is important to Apple. Besides music streaming, Beats also sells high-end headphones.

Southwest also offers free TV through Dish Network. As in the case with Beats, passengers connect to the on-board Wi-Fi network with their smartphone, tablet or computer to access the content. They can separately purchase an $8 Wi-Fi pass to browse the wider Web, and movies are available for $5.

The air carrier launched a similar deal with iTunes in 2011 that allowed passengers to download some songs free, but online music listening has significantly shifted from downloading to streaming since then.

Beats Music subscriptions run $9.99 a month, and the deal with Southwest Airlines could expose more people to Beats’ selling point of expert-curated playlists for any mood or genre.

Chat with me on Twitter @peard33