By Nick Heath, 3 July 2009 15:57
NEWS
Airlines should scrap in-flight entertainment systems because they cannot compete with the thousands of songs and scores of movies that can be stored on modern media players, according to an aviation expert.
The pace at which airlines can update the selection of film, music, games and technology offered to passengers is being outstripped by constant advances in storage and functionality on media players, according to professor John Hansman, director of the International Technology Center for Air Transport at MIT.
"When an airplane is outfitted it is expected to last 10 to 12 years so, as a consequence, most of the in-flight entertainment devices are obsolete within maybe two years," Hansman told the Sita Air Transport IT Summit in Cannes this week.
"The timescale for a change in [consumer] technology is probably about a year."
He said airlines should instead focus on providing the elements necessary to allow users to access media stored on onboard storage or the internet through their own devices.
"In five to 10 years' time a personal device may hold 500 movies. Airlines just have to make sure that they provide interoperability with those things," he said.
"The airline will need to provide power and communication bandwidth for travellers to use these personal devices within the airplane."
Wireless web access is already available or soon to be deployed, across a number of airlines including BA and Ryanair, both of which use a system from OnAir, a joint venture between Airbus and Sita.
However, CEO of OnAir, Benoit Debains said, at present, the two-channel 432Kbps link provided by OnAir is too slow for streaming media from the internet and said adding an additional aerial was unattractive to airlines because of extra weight and drag.
Comments
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1. anonymous
Airlines need to junk their crappy old systems and replace with a decent modern hard disc based one - can't be that hard to interface to the touchscreens or on older ones, passively broadcast. Many of the older systems barely work.
The other main thing that irritates passengers beyond belief is the attempted milking of £5 for a set of headphones so you can watch. This is completely unacceptable.
2. Jasmin Raja
At first, IFE consisted of looking out the window! During the 1990s the demand for better IFE was a major factor in the design of aircraft cabins. Before then, the most a passenger could expect was a movie projected on a screen at the front of a cabin, which could be heard via a headphone socket at his or her seat! IFE has evolved! expanded to include in-flight connectivity! Bluebox- A family of one of the most advanced IFE solutions (from portable through to a full AVOD system) in the marketplace today!