Inflight Entertainment -- Spend $$ To Make $$

When will the so-called "legacy airlines" learn that if you intend to compete in the Wal-Mart market, then you've got to cater to the Wal-Mart crowd -- that means, spend money to make money.

I dont think it takes a rocket scientist to see that the customers WANT this stuff. Time to go shopping...

Time flies when you're tuned in
MSNBC

I've always kind of liked flying, but it's also full of a million little frustrations. No leg room. Stale air. The sheer boredom of being stuck in a tiny space for hours on end. And then this weekend for the first time I flew JetBlue airlines. (I get no kickback from them, or from DirectTV, just so you know.)

What a difference! The leather seats and additional leg room were fabulous, of course, and I actually appreciated the fact that they didn't serve hot food — I never eat airline food anyway. But the best part of the flight was the individual TV screens built into each seatback, all programmed with 20+ channels of Direct TV programming.

Watching TV while flying is the perfect solution to airplane boredom. It eliminates any of the guilt I feel about watching TV at home, where I'm always thinking I should be doing something else — getting my oil changed, learning to weave, running laps. But on the plane, there's almost nothing you can do other than sit and stare straight ahead. TV is the perfect time-passer.

Unlike watching an inflight movie, where everyone has to watch the same thing, DirectTV channels offered a choice. I peeked around and saw some folks watching news programs, sitcoms, movies and, best of all for me, the Olympics. It even distracted us from some shaky turbulence — pretending we didn't feel it, we concentrated on the women's gymnastics team. If they could do all those fancy flips on a tiny four-inch beam, surely our giant plane could muscle its way through the darkness. And they made it, and so did we. The five-hour trip seemed to, uh, fly by. When will the other airlines catch on?
 
Except for the 737 which only has audio channels, all flights on United have FREE movies and TV programming. Especially nice on the 777 and 767 were there are 6 movies to choose from and 3 tv shows.
 
Seatacus said:
I agree.......being entertained while flying helps you get over the fact that you hate flying, or your luggage was lost,or you hate kiosks, or you don't like waiting in lines, etc....etc...
[post="172833"][/post]​


who cares about hating to fly?WE fly because we have to, not because we LIKE IT.....
is like driving to the wawa store, WE DO IT BECAUSE WE NEED THAT CUP OF WHATEVER.
AND NOT;

BECAUSE WE LIKE DRIVING THERE.
 
Seatacus said:
I agree.......being entertained while flying helps you get over the fact that you hate flying, or your luggage was lost,or you hate kiosks, or you don't like waiting in lines, etc....etc...
[post="172833"][/post]​

Yeah... and those lucky folks who flew today got to tune in to CNN or some other news channel and see coverage of...two Russian passenger jets crashing, with hijacking a suspected reason. Bet that didn't do much to calm the quesy flyer...
 
For those of you on the inside, it is a somewhat well known fact that UAIR is evaluating new IFE options. Anyone "in the know" care to elaborate more?

If UAIR had IFE at every seat on every mainline aircraft, I somehow don't think they'd be any better off right now. It's a nice to have, but not a revenue generator.

In the end the choice of airline comes down to a few simple factors:

1.) If it's a business trip that the employer is paying for:
Employee flies a company preferred carrier(most have a few) that gives best FF program benefits

2.) If it's a business trip for an independent contractor/passenger who pays out of their own pocket:
This is a toss up and probably the hardest customer to retain. Their pick of airline will be based on a fine compromise between filght availability, price and allegance to FF program (not necessarily in that order)

3.) If it's a personal trip *AND* it's a regular business traveller with status:
Passenger flies airline of choice for upgrade and point benefits

4.) If it's a personal trip *AND* the passenger is not a frequent traveller:
Passenger flies the cheapest carrier, even if it means 3 connections.


The only place I can see IFE being the deal-maker is a business traveller who has his/her pick of airlines *AND* is not price sensitive, or the leisure traveller who wants a good product cheap.
 
Again, what IFE does Southwest Have? Are they making money? With 5,000 employees MORE then USAirways, do the employees make more then us now? And how about after our next pay cut?
 
I can tell you right now that one of my friends goes out of his way to fly JetBlue simply because of the IFE. When you have a system like they do it's called a COMPETITIVE EDGE. If USAirways were to invest in a decent IFE system :rolleyes: ....... it would require we MARKET that as something we have and others might not. You have to give the public a reason to fly us! Wait...that would require a marketing department....opps.
 
Virgin America's IFE is going to make JetBlue's look like it has "rabbit ears" running it. From what I've been hearing Branson is going to utilize his mega media empire and offer things such as MP3 downloads, instant messaging, on demand video with hundreds of choices (similiar to what we have on the A330) all this on a "domestic LCC". If you think we're behind JetBlue; it's going to really suck if we're still around and Virgin America gets going.
 
That would be great if we had a problem filling our seats. Only thing is, Load Factors are out the roof. Problem is low fares, not being able to put people on our metal. Didnt the CEO of DL say Song was a mistake? They have direct TV on board those aircraft.
 
Hope777 said:
That would be great if we had a problem filling our seats. Only thing is, Load Factors are out the roof. Problem is low fares, not being able to put people on our metal. Didnt the CEO of DL say Song was a mistake? They have direct TV on board those aircraft.
[post="172967"][/post]​

I'm a long time "Chairman" and US Airways has proven that they don't care about the customer!! Therefore, why should they invest in "In Flight Entertainment"?? They bought all of the beautiful new Airbuses with wonderful sound and IFE capability, to quickly remove the systems from their entire Airbus fleet (except for 330's). Food sucks even on Transatlantic in First on the A330. FA's are so embarrassed to serve what little they have, they continually apologize, etc. UA is in bankruptcy but still utilizes china and glassware, as does Dl, CO and AA, to name a few. US says that's not in their plans at all.

US doesn't deserve to be around with their bad EE attitudes and their lack of interest in the customer. No appreciation by the company or any EE group at Uair for those loyal customers that have kept them in business for as long as we have.

They aren't going to invest in IFE's and, even if they did, it won't save Uair!!
 
The narrow body airbus were never equiped with the same system as the 330 and the narrow body airbus still have the IFE.