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?
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?