American Airlines Announces Complimentary Inflight Entertainment

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Diesel8

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Aug 19, 2002
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www.usaviation.com
Or you could fly on jetBlue, which does not charge for the headset!
 
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020924/datu025_1.html
FORT WORTH, Texas, Sept. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- American Airlines today announced that effective Nov. 1, the carrier will offer complimentary inflight entertainment for customers on all audio/video-equipped flights systemwide.

American''s current $5 entertainment charge will be eliminated on all flights within the continental U.S. as well as to Canada, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Customers on American will be encouraged to bring their favorite audio headset onboard and enjoy outstanding inflight entertainment, such as CBS Eye on American as well as popular feature films on select flights.
As a convenience to customers who don''t travel with a personal headset, American will have headsets available on most audio/video-equipped flights for its main cabin customers, for the purchase price of $2. Customers may keep the headset for future use on American flights, at no additional charge. American is not making any change to its international policy, which already provides complimentary inflight entertainment. American''s premium class customers will continue to receive complimentary inflight entertainment on all audio/video-equipped flights.
 
I think this is a great idea.The savings in cleaning and stocking is about 6milllion.The 2 dollar charge is pretty cheap for inflight entertainment if you do not have your own headset.
 
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On 9/24/2002 1:44:19 PM Diesel8 wrote:

Or you could fly on jetBlue, which does not charge for the headset!
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Jetblue doesn't fly between the MIA And LAX. And I don't think pax choose an airline because of the headset cost. But I could be wrong.
 
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On 9/24/2002 2:34:36 PM Diesel8 wrote:

Okay, that's it, now you done it

However, while you are correct in the assertion that live TV is not available to SJU, it is "rumoured" that soon there will be IE even on this route. [img src='http://www.usaviation.com/idealbb/images/smilies/3.gif']
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Why? Because of the positions of the SATs?
 
So; what's next? F/As hawking sealed packages containing a new main cabin pillow and blanket for $5.00 (which the passenger keeps) in the Gate area prior to departure. Nonsense? Not really, AA spends millions yearly on this stuff. Today's passengers not needing the pillow and blanket just chuck them on the floor during flight, where they lay as other passengers wipe their shoes and children grind their cheerios into them.

Later an AA FSC comes onboard the flight with minimal ground time, folds the blankets and places them on the seats for the next unsuspecting passenger and on and on.
This action by the FSC is both labor intensive and needless to say unsanitary.

At the end of thousands of air-miles on scheduled lay-over the blankets are finally returned to the local laundry which in turn charge AA more for the cleaning of said blankets than the price of a new one. Well not really, but pretty damn close.
 
Busdrvr,

The sat is over Houston. Did speak with a technician from the company and from what I can remember, the lack of service had to do with the FCC, not the system itself. If you really want to know, I will ask again.
 
The not so cool part of this anouncement is, thay we will be selling headsets on every flight now. Its hard to keep a change fund going as it is. Now I will have 20 people with 20, twenty dollar bills looking for a headset and 18 dollars change each.

Good luck to the smart a$$ with the hundred or the fifty dollar bill. Like the gas station on the corner here in my neighborhood. I dont take anything over a 20.
 
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The sat is over Houston. Did speak with a technician from the company and from what I can remember, the lack of service had to do with the FCC, not the system itself. If you really want to know, I will ask again.
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No, the sat is in an equatorial orbit at 101.2* longitude, which is over the Pacific and a couple hundred miles west of the Galapagos Islands.

Based on the signal footprint, there is coverage as you proceed southeast of Florida, but it falls off past the Bahamas and northern half of Cuba, and moreso over Hispanola, which is probably why the decision was made not to have it active for the SJU flights. You'd have the signal for the first part of the flight, just to have it fade out towards the end...

The same would happen trying to offer LiveTV to Hawaii, which might be one of the reasons none of the bigger carriers bought into it (why have a product you can't use on your longer flights?...).

With a bigger dish, the signal strength could be overcome (i.e. someone with a 2 meter dish can probably get a DirecTV signal in SJU just fine...), but I'm not so sure that is much of an option with the type of antenna used on aircraft...

[a href=http://www.dbstv.com/DIRECTV_Footprint.html target=_footprint]See the footprint[/a]
 
[P]What are they charging? 2 bucks, you get to keep the headset. That means if you fly 200 flights it only will cost you a penny. It is the 201st. flight and the rest that will be freebies...[/P]
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[P]Let me see if I've got this right. The entertainment will now be free, but they will charge you for the headset. How is that any different from the way it is now? It's always been that way. They can't blindfold you so they charge you for the headset. They called it an inflight entertainment charge. Now they call it a headset charge. What's the difference??[/P]
[P]m[STRONG]AA[/STRONG]rky[/P]
 
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