Looking for Entertainment Variety? Try an Airliner Seat
Airline seats may seem smaller, but they are making up for it in sophistication.
Indeed, a slew of new features is making the airline seat “a fabric-covered electronics rack,” said Tim Fehr, vice president of commercial avionics for Boeing.
By 2000, Fehr says, many, if not most, planes will have digital entertainment centers at each seat, with more than 200 audio channels and 100 video channels powered by Pentium computer chips or successive generations of microprocessors.
The seats will also become elaborate office modules and communications hubs, if more than 200 companies participating in last week’s World Airline Entertainment Assn. meeting in Seattle have even moderate success with their products.
How soon such seats become commonplace depends on setting standards, increasing reliability and--most of all--convincing airlines that they’re worth the expense.
Companies are already lining up with offerings for seat-back computers, with options that range from in-flight gambling and shopping to videos on demand, teleconferencing and TV programming, not to mention Internet hookups and faxing capabilities. There is talk of on-board printers that would allow passengers to receive telegrams.
Interactive video is already available on some flights. Cathay Pacific, for example, offers interactive information on its six-channel “personal televisions” in economy class.
Shopping and gambling systems in particular could move ahead quickly if passengers appear willing to spend a lot of money in the air. However, gambling is illegal in U.S. airspace, a sore spot for some of the companies.
Nonetheless, this month British Airways announced it will offer in-flight gambling using a system developed by Wellington, Fla.-based B/E Aerospace. Swissair now offers on-board bingo and keno. And Singapore Airlines is testing a gambling program being developed by Memphis-based Interactive Entertainment Ltd., a joint venture between Harrah’s Entertainment and Sky Games International.
Airlines spent $850 million last year on in-flight entertainment, and that’s expected to increase. Seat-back entertainment screens with numerous options for passengers are being developed by many companies.
“Passengers have come to expect the same things on a plane that they have at home,” Boeing’s Fehr said. But those features come at a cost.
In 1990, airlines had about $1,800 invested per seat, Fehr said. In 1995, the figure was $6,000. By 2000, the investment will be about $10,000 per seat, he said.
In addition, the equipment adds weight, takes up space and requires extra maintenance and enormous cooling capacity, Fehr said.
Engineers will have to balance the need to keep the computers cool with the need to keep passengers comfortable. They will also have to strengthen aircraft floors and find room for miles of extra wiring.
None of the anticipated visions of seat-back computers will reach their potential, however, if the in-flight entertainment industry doesn’t come up with standards so all hardware and software systems in development are compatible and able to ‘talk’ to each other.
Indeed, the
search for a standard was a primary focus of this year’s WAEA conference. Recommendations are expected by next year. “Integrating this subsystem is the biggest challenge for the industry,” Fehr said.
But there’s also a big incentive to make it happen. Airlines are anxious to have the new seat-back features because adding even a few additional dollars of revenue per seat can make the difference between flying in the red and flying in the black.
“In the early 1990s, airlines lost more than a billion dollars in one year,” Fehr said. “If they had generated $5 more per seat, they would have made a profit.” If in-flight entertainment features help add just two first-class passengers per flight to a 747 operator, they will be worth a net $5 million to the airline, he said.
And in an era when it’s increasingly difficult to tell one airline from the next, in-flight entertainment offers a way for airlines to differentiate themselves, a key to attracting customers.
Besides standards and systems integration, the other main challenge for in-flight entertainment systems is securing the information that goes into on-board computers.
If a seat-back screen is too much like a normal computer, “it’s very tempting for pirates,” said Wade Hannibal of MGM/UA, chairman of the association’s committee on media distribution. High-value products, such as first-run movies, need to be encrypted as they are digitized and compressed into computer files for delivery to seat-back screens.
“If a pirate wants your in-flight safety video, welcome to it,” said Hannibal. “But if it’s a first-run feature film product, that’s another story.”
Movie distributors, who don’t want passengers with laptops making copies of films that aren’t even on video yet, will insist on copy protection and high security.
Here are some other announcements made at the conference:
* Virtual shopping. London-based British Telecommunications demonstrated future applications that are under development, including use of an individual “smartcard” to deliver personalized screen selections, and virtual reality screens that will let the passenger go virtual shopping.
BT already offers credit card teleshopping, video games, advanced destination and flight information and videos. Airlines that have already purchased BT’s systems include Singapore International Airlines, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Malaysia Airlines.
* Armrest choices. Mitsubishi’s Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Multimedia Business Center introduced a new multi-feature digital in-flight system at the conference. The system will provide movies and music on demand, video games, gambling, shopping and city guides, flight information and telephone/fax services and will allow credit card transactions.
The system has the capacity to store about 24 100-minute videos. Passengers use an armrest controller to choose a movie or short subject, such as a city guide. The controller also lets them pause, restart, fast forward or rewind their selections. In addition, the controller serves as a telephone handset.
* Internet. Surfing the Net from the air may be made easy with a system from Atlanta-based Network Connection, which makes high-speed computer servers and seat-back video systems. The company said Allegis Systems of South Africa has purchased its AirView system for use in a Boeing 727-200 Advanced Executive aircraft. The system includes interactive entertainment as well as business services, including fax, Internet hookup and e-mail capabilities at the seat.
* Live broadcasts. Pomona-based Hughes-Avicom has taken to the air using satellite broadcast via DirecTV to deliver programming. Delta Air Lines began offering the television broadcasts to passengers in August on one Boeing 767 in the U.S. The system shows four cable channels: CNN, comedy, sports and variety. The programs are shown on the screens usually used for movies--one in first class and two in coach. But the flight attendants and not the passengers control the channels.
Other systems were demonstrated at the conference as well. In-flight Phone Corp. of Oakbrook, Ill., for example, said it will have a system to deliver real-time broadcast of live television to airborne planes. Comsat Aeronautical Services in Clarksburg, Md., said it wants to incorporate a message system, so people on ground can send a message directly to the seat back.
