In-flight Entertainment
Encyclopedia : I : IN : INF : In-flight Entertainment
- redirect
In-flight Entertainment (or Inflight -, abbreviation IFE) is the entertainment available to aircraft passengers during flight. During the 1990s the demand for better IFE was a major factor in the way airlines fitted their 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 their seat.
Most major airlines have now installed Personal TVs (PTVs) for every passenger on most long-haul routes. These are located in the seat-backs or tucked away in the armrests for front rows seats. Many different systems are used, from just a few channels, AVOD (Audio Visual On Demand), or DirecTV (offered by jetBlue and Delta's Song, which shows the TV channels live as they are transmitted from the ground). Some carriers offer video games using the PTV equipment.
Some airlines that offer PTVs across the whole fleet include Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines, and Emirates. Few airlines offer PTVs on short haul/domestic flights (e.g. Air Canada, WestJet of Canada and Kingfisher Airlines of India).
Some airlines do not offer PTVs at all (e.g. Lufthansa, Aeroflot, and Icelandair).
Most long haul carries offer PTVs on selected aircraft types and routes (e.g. American Airlines, Thai Airways, British Airways, Kenya Airways, Air Canada, and Air India).
With the introduction of new aircraft and the rapid advances in aviation technology, it is rare to find new long-haul planes being delivered without PTVs. And an increasing number of short-haul aircraft are being fitted with drop-down LCD screens every few rows because there is some demand for entertainment even on short flight. Some airlines who order short-haul aircrafts also have PTVs available at every seat. (e.g. Air Canada's Embraer 175 and 190 fleet feature PTVs at every seat. Kingfisher Airlines of India also features short haul aircrafts with PTVs at every seat).
References
[Continental Airlines In-flight Entertainment] Accessed July 8, 2006["Airline Competition Moves to In-Flight Entertainment"] The Washington Post Accessed July 8, 2006
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.