OnBoard Entertainment
ONBOARD ENTERTAINMENT
Alex Rogers reports back from APEX in Long Beach for OnBoard Hospitality
It is fair to say that following on from Aircraft Interiors in Hamburg where inflight Wi-Fi was the buzz word, it continued to dominate
the show in Long Beach from the educational sessions to award winners, product launches and contract signings. All the major players (including a wide range of new players) now have an inflight Wi-Fi offering available. The key challenge is content security for wireless streaming to passenger-owned devices. Once this constraint is removed and early window content can be released to any device, – then the narrow-body IFE market will really take off.
The debate remains unresolved, however, as to whether the rise and rise of Wi-Fi and wirelessly streamed content will see the death of traditional embedded inflight entertainment systems. For the moment, this is very much an issue for the future, but nevertheless an issue that airlines must consider when planning investment in systems for installation on new aircraft or retro-fitting. Send your onboard entertainment news to:
editorial@onboardhospitality.com
LAN to trial Thales wireless streaming
Thales and LAN Airlines have announced that they are collaborating on the trial of Thales’ newly introduced TopSeries AVA system on a single Airbus A320 aircraft. The system is the latest evolutionary step in Thales’ TopSeries product line and allows passengers and crew to utilise their own portable electronic devices (PEDs) to access content on applications through the Thales head-end server with wireless access points in the cabin. The trial will commence in December 2012. LAN and Thales have been gearing up for the trial on board the A320 since early 2012 and have looked at every detail including the portal seen by the passenger once logged into the system. This portal will reinforce the LAN brand and will allow passengers to access a wide range of capabilities including flight map, films, short subjects, music, latest news, games, eReader and a special version of LAN’s website. “The launch of AVA is a natural progression in our TopSeries product line that gives airlines another option in terms of how they interact with passengers. We anticipate that our industry will take a leap forward with the use of wireless connectivity,” said Alan Pellegrini, ceo for the Thales In-flight Entertainment and Connectivity business.
The TopSeries AVA system is able to integrate into the software capabilities that support Apple, Android, Windows, IE, Firefox and Chrome amongst others. The trial will be evaluated on an on-going basis and if successful will be rolled out to the wider LAN A320 fleet.
www.thales-ifs.com www.lan.com
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www.onboardhospitality.com
IMS signs Omni Air and Icelandair for RAVE
California based, IMS Company has announced that both Icelandair and Omni Air have signed up for its RAVE™ 'seat-centric' IFE system. They represent the eleventh and twelfth airlines to sign up for the RAVE system.
Icelandair will fit the system to its Boeing 757 aircraft with the first aircraft scheduled to have the system fitted in early 2013. Omni Air will start to fit its Boeing 777 aircraft around the same time.
The airlines cited different reasons behind their selection of the RAVE system: “We wanted a system that added value to our product and provided us with a simple but innovative IFE solution”, stated David Gantner, sr. director maintenance, Omni Air. "We chose RAVE because it provided the most reliable solution at the lowest cost to own and operate – a key factor for a charter airline like OAI. “Icelandair has built a system of outstanding flight services between Iceland and other countries, and our agreement with RAVE now allows us to continue to build on that system by equipping our flights with an outstanding passenger experience inside the cabin,” said Helgi Már Björgvinsson, Icelandair svp sales and marketing.
Other airlines which are operating or installing RAVE include Lufthansa, Air Nuigini, Royal Air Maroc and Sri Lankan Airlines.
www.imsco-us.com
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