No matter how much airline marketing departments would like to make us believe that flying on their long-haul services is an experience equivalent to gourmet dining whilst reclining on silk pillows, we all know the truth is somewhat different.
Faced with the prospect of eight hours or more in a metal or carbonfibre tube, most of us would prefer to lose ourselves in whatever the increasingly voluminous electronic libraries of airlines’ IFE systems can offer. And we’re generally grateful for the distraction.
But what of shorter trips – is there a market for IFE on journeys of perhaps only a couple of hours?
Some airlines have attempted to create such a market. Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, Ryanair, tried to interest customers in tablet computers pre-loaded with entertainment. Being Ryanair, which makes a substantial proportion of its annual profits from ancillary revenue streams, it charged customers a fee to use them. Results were not encouraging.
“We did in the past have media players – five per aircraft – which we rented for £5 [$7.50],” recalls the airline’s chief technology officer, John Hurley. “It wasn’t very successful.” By the time they were handed out, there was often insufficient flight time remaining for passengers to derive much use from them.
Today, the Irish carrier’s attention is focused on facilitating onboard IFE through passengers’ own mobile devices, a project that is due to be trialled later this year.
The plan is that passengers will download an app to their tablets or smartphones that will enable content to be streamed from an onboard server. The content will have digital rights management controls so it cannot be copied or otherwise appropriated by the passengers.
“There will be one server and five repeaters throughout the aircraft,” says Hurley. “At the moment, the current business model is that it will be paid for through advertising; there will be a 30-second advert every 20 minutes. It’s got to be cost-neutral or slightly in our advantage.”
Ryanair’s annual passenger figures of over 80 million – anticipated to hit 100 million by FY17 – gives advertisers a huge potential captive audience. Customers using the airline’s new “business plus” fare might be offered enhanced content as part of their premium package.
Test systems may be flown in late summer this year, probably on Dublin-originating routes – although which routes have not been decided on yet. If these trials are successful there could be a wider roll-out of the system in 2016.
Ryanair regards this self-contained onboard system as a better option than trying to provide wi-fi from an external source due to variable coverage and the potential loss of advertising revenue though customers streaming their own content. External aerials also incur a drag penalty, Hurley notes.
The Association of European Airlines (AEA), which has almost 30 member carriers, says that, like Ryanair, many of its members are looking less at full-scale IFE and more at how they can facilitate passengers’ “self-entertainment” by allowing them to use mobile devices on board.
One such airline is Star Alliance member TAP Portugal, which signed a deal with portable platform specialist Bluebox Avionics in February to adopt Bluebox Ai for its mid-haul IFE requirement.
Bluebox Ai is a secure IFE app for the Apple iPad family of tablets and mini-tablets, which can then be distributed to passengers as appropriate.
The manufacturer says the platform is approved by US studios to host their premium "early window" – in other words, recently released – content. It can also interface with cabin streaming technologies to provide a hybrid platform, Bluebox wiFE, that the company says is as content-rich as any fitted system.
The new deployment will see older DVD players replaced by the Bluebox entertainment solution in TAP’s business-class cabins on key mid-haul routes between Lisbon and Moscow, Helsinki and Accra.
“Bluebox won’t just replace the older DVD solution, but enhance it substantially,” says Rogerio Correia, head of media and content management at TAP. “We’ll have our first-run movies on there, naturally, but also offer premium television titles, a wide range of digital press titles in Portuguese and English, and plenty of great iPad games too.”
Alan McInnes, business development manager at DMD Phantom – which has a 50% share in Bluebox – says the hybrid solution has so far been selected by Hong Kong's Dragon Air, Air Canada Rouge and El Al. "Ai is the main product line for us, but in future the hybrid model will become more important," he says. "One year ago we were talking about the theory of hybrid, and we have delivered [that system] to three airlines since then."
Others carriers are going down a different route. Estonian Air and Dutch low-cost airline Transavia, the latter a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, are both customers of Hoofddorp, Netherlands-based MI Airline and its AirFi product.
AirFi allows a carrier to create a wi-fi network onboard an aircraft, which passengers can log on to using their own devices to access a variety of hosted content such as games and videos.
Contained in the AirFi box – weighing 1.3kg – are a wi-fi transmitter, server and battery. Because the system is not hardwired into the aircraft, AirFi boxes are easy to transport and don’t incur the weight penalty of an embedded system, says chief executive Job Heimerikx.
It offers an internet browsing experience and IFE in a cost-effective way. “Even though Ku- or Ka-band products from a technical point of view are very beautiful, we are of the opinion that it is very hard to make a business case for the short-haul airline,” says Heimerikx.
Rental cost for an AirFi box – two are required for a narrowbody – is €2,500 ($2,640) per year, but this can be offset if adverts are included within the content package, he says.
The association says that the only AEA member to have installed IFE seatback screens on its short-haul fleet is another Star Alliance member, Turkish Airlines. Most others have limited ‘entertainment’ to drop-down ceiling screens that chart the flight’s progress.
The only other exception, says AEA, is Swiss – which uses the drop-down screens for promotional material, such as programmes dedicated to new destinations on the airline’s network or Swiss cultural activities.
Increasingly, however, passengers are making their own entertainment, coming on board with their laptop or tablet computers pre-loaded with films or music. Tablets are increasingly favoured as, unlike laptops, they do not have to be stowed away for take-off and landing, so users can have anywhere from an extra 10 to 30 minutes of playtime as aircraft taxies to and from the runway.
Using their own devices also allows them to make use of their own headsets – frequent travellers often buy high-quality noise-cancelling headphones that gave better sound reproduction than traditional airline headsets.
One problem facing airlines, says AEA, is that IFE technology is developing so quickly that they are cautious about investing for fear of buying systems that are likely to quickly become outmoded. Allied to that is the sense that due to the lengthy development, certification and installation period relating to all onboard IFE, it will always lag the rapid capability enhancement seen in consumer electronics.
Source: Flight Daily News
