Rockwell Collins Passenger Systems will test audio/video/on-demand (A/VOD) capability on its Total Entertainment System (TES) with an unidentified airline in the first quarter of next year.
Rockwell is the last of the major in-flight entertainment (IFE) hardware suppliers to offer A/VOD functionality, which provides passengers with control over their audio and video programming. Matsushita has A/VOD flying on its System 2000E with All Nippon Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Saudi Airlines and Singapore Airlines; Sony Trans Com's P@ssport system is providing the service to Air Canada and South African Airways; while Sextant's A/VOD is flying on the manufacturer's mSeries hardware on Japan Airlines' new Boeing 747-400s.
The six-month, one-aircraft trial will be followed by the launch of A/VOD with a separate airline customer in the middle of next year, says Dave Frankenbach, director of product marketing.
TES users include Air France, American Airlines, British Airways and Delta Air Lines.
Rockwell concedes that it is offering A/VOD later than it had originally hoped, but Frankenbach says the manufacturer has been focusing on improving the reliability of the basic TES before it adds more functionality. "We recently had fleetwide availability numbers in the 99% region, so we are getting close to where we want reliability to be," he says.
Recently appointed vice-president and general manager of the Rockwell IFE division, Neal Keating, admits that the manufacturer ran into particular problems with the BA programme. The airline is equipping more than 100 aircraft with the TES, having dropped its previous interactive IFE system supplier, B/E Aerospace (now Sextant In-Flight Systems), because of reliability problems.
"We ran into several issues with the BA programme - we didn't reach reliability, had trouble isolating contributory causes and struggled with spares," says Keating. He claims the manufacturer has made significant progress with the programme over the past few months.
Rockwell will add Intranet services to the TES from the middle of next year.
Source: Flight International
