TechInFlight

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.

A USA Today article speaks to a move by US airlines to give economy passengers greater control and selection of movies, audio, and games.

Airlines worldwide spent $1.4 billion on in-flight entertainment hardware last year, research firm IMDC says. It’s projected to increase to more than $2 billion by 2012. The result: monitors in individual seatbacks, digital transmission for clearer picture, on-demand delivery that lets passengers pause and rewind, hundreds of movie and song titles, games beyond Hangman and Sudoku, seat-to-seat texting and even e-mail.

Most travelers and analysts agree that foreign airlines have been more aggressive about adopting the latest and fanciest features.

via USA Today

Flickr user Crashworks has some excellent pics of Virgin America’s RED IFE system in action. Below are some samples.

in-seat chat

games

television

maps

power

Many IFE systems in service these days offer some form of on-demand entertainment whether that be audio only or a full selection of audio and video. The issue being how much faith do you put into the choices the airline will offer to you on your flight? Would you be better off bringing your own entertainment? At least with BYOE you’ll know the entertainment you have will be to your liking. Several years ago we took our then toddler on an overseas flight and decided to go the BYOE route. Can’t remember if the video iPod was available at the time but we did not have one. Even if we did the screen size would have been too small for our toddler. We brought along a portable DVD player and a library of DVDs that she enjoyed so we were covered on the entertainment front. The down side was having to carry the DVD player, the DVDs, and an extra battery (power ports were not widely available at the time) onto the aircraft in our carryon bags. Not sure what we’ll do on our next family vacation that includes a long haul flight. Do we do the BYOE thing again or hope the AVOD offering for kids will be things the kids will enjoy? Well, there’s always the option to use the iPhone as a BYOE back-up.

I was recently introduced to SeatGuru.com. Have you ever ended up in a seat with limited ability to recline or so close to a lavatory making it a high traffic area during your flight? Wish you could have chosen an alternative seat? If you have the ability to select your seat prior to your flight SeatGuru.com will be invaluable to you. The SeatGuru database include seatmaps for more than 300 airplanes from more than 45 different airlines. The simple color coded seatmap and specific comments for each seat grouping helps you find a “green” seat. The database for each airline and aircraft also includes a list of in-flight amenities and airline information.

SeatGuru.com also has a noise-canceling headphone review in their Travel Resources section in which six noise-canceling headphones are reviewed.

Annual survey conducted by Skytrax Research crowns Emirates as the airline with the best in-flight entertainment. Survey respondents nominated airlines in the 2007 Best IFE Awards, based upon the quality attributes for the different factors listed below: 

• Best Total quality of IFE
• Best selection of movies - (including language choices)
• Best selection of “short / magazine” video programs
• Best selection of Audio programming
• Best selection of Games and other interactive options
• Reliability of AVOD programming
• Ease of usage for AVOD program systems
• Quality of headset / sound quality