Portable media player maker digEcor announced that long time customer Pacific Blue has placed an order to upgrade to the company’s digEplayer XT. The digEplayer XT features an 8-inch TFT screen, integrated credit card reader, 60 gigabyte or larger hard drive, USB 2.0 port, and two independently controlled headphone jacks. The content provided by digEcor which will include: movies, TV, music, music videos, and video games. Pacific Blue will be renting the digEplayer XT’s to passengers exclusively on international flights from Christchurch and Auckland to Australia as well as on all flights to the Pacific Islands.
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Harvard Business Review Ideacast episode 107 discusses Singapore Airlines’ strategy that is allowing them to thrive in the current downturn in the industry by focusing on the customer experience and using marketing as an investment. Harvard Business School Professor Rohit Deshpande speaks based on his HBS case study “Singapore Airlines: Customer Service Innovation.” Deshpande says that Singapore Airlines brings its customer service focus to all cabins, even if it’s making its money off of the front of the plane. “They give more frills to economy than any airline,” he says. “They were the first in-seat TVs and offered more channels than any airline. They have, even in economy, more flight attendants per passenger.”
Delta announces plans to equip their entire fleet of more than 330 aircraft with in-flight WiFi service to be available in first and economy classes by Summer 2009. The Aircell Gogo service will run $9.95 or $12.95 for trips under or over three hours, respectively, and will allow connection of any WiFi enabled device.
Qantas A380 Virtual Cabin Tour: The new Qantas A380 is on sale now for selected flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Los Angeles for travel from late October 2008. The Qantas A380 is also on sale for selected flights from Sydney to Singapore and London for travel from mid January 2009.
Cathay Pacific Virtual Cabin Tour: all three classes in their new aircrafts have been upgraded to give you more comfort, personal space and individual privacy in the air. Have a look at the new First, Business, and Economy classes.
Food and drink sales facilitated by Red are the foundation of the airline’s ancillary revenue effort indicated Charles Ogilvie, Director of Inflight Entertainment & Partnerships at Virgin America. Ogilvie said “We charge for everything except water and soda, so we make money from food and drink, and also from things like premium IFE content.” Virgin America is now earning thousands of dollars a day from onboard sales of food and other offerings.
US Airways announced that it will no longer be offering in-flight movies on domestic US flights starting in November. The move was announced as a fuel saving measure…at 500 pounds per plane, the in-flight entertainment systems weighed too much for the carrier to justify leaving them on board. The carrier said it will save $10 million per year in fuel costs by getting rid of the movies. Given the fuel crunch its hard to argue the move but unless all the other carriers follow suit why would you choose to fly US Airways? Unless of course you usually bring your own entertainment (BYOE) via iPod/iPhone when flying.
Inflight Online news reports on progress being made by two big names in passenger broadband. Aircell which is rolling out the Gogo in-flight WiFi services has secured additional funding that will be used to keep the company afloat during the roll-out of their service. Panasonic has announced VT iDirect as the source of the satellite IP router technology that will be used for their Ku-band satellite broadband service, eXConnect, expected to launch in the first half of next year.
