Entertainment is big business in Hollywood -the California city where streets are paved with stars and sprawling film and television studios churn out the latest blockbuster hits.

Located just an hours drive south of sunny Los Angeles is Irvine, home to the in-flight entertainment headquarters facility of the French avionics and IFEC products manufacturer Thales.

Here, in more than 220,000 sq ft of office, lab and manufacturing space, work is being carried out on the latest innovations in IFEC,from ‘ directional sound’ that would do away with headphones ,to ‘gesture control ‘ technology ,whereby users simply wave their hands to navigate through screens.

It’s an exciting time for the EOM. Thales’ next generation android -based Top Series Avant system will be making its way on to its first flights towards the end of this year with Qatar Airways, and competition among airlines is driving investment in IFE systems and connectivity.

Thales believes airlines are now recognizing the value of IFEC. “In-flight entertainment systems can have a direct and lasting impact on passenger perceptions of an airlines service excellence,” said Alan Pellegrini, Thales in-flight entertainment business CEO.

Enhancing the passenger’s in-flight experience is high on the agenda for most airlines, many of which offer a substantial choice of content on board the aircraft.”It’s not unusual when you fly with a modern in-flight entertainment system for there to be, maybe, several hundred movies on board, thousands of audio titles and CD\’s, hundreds of games,” said Pellegrini.”The systems today can store up to two terabytes of content, which is an enormous amount of material.”

However, there is still a huge range in the standards of IFEC offered, depending on which airline you choose.”The range in the airline industry is very great,” said William HoutMarchand, Thales vice president international business.” We have airlines like Qatar Airways ,Emirates and Cathy Pacific that have hundreds of movies from all around the world to appeal to their entire demographic, down to airlines that have a more modest budget and offer a smaller set of the top 10 Hollywood blockbusters, and everything in between.”

Key Driver

In the African market, Hout-Marchand said that a good value system is the key driver.”Airlines in Africa are bringing in a lot of tourism so they a want a system that matches the tourists demographic,” he said.

Unsurprisingly, premium airlines in particular are willing to invest a lot of money in the customization of the IFE system on board the aircraft.’ For them the IFE is the centre of the experience that you are having there. So they are willing to invest a lot, “explained Hout-Marchand.

For airlines with a smaller budget looking for ways to compete in today’s crowded marketplace, Thales has a number of options.” It’s important in our business to be able to address multiple segments of the airline community,” said Pellegrini .” One of the best features of Av ant is that scales very well to cover that entire range. We’ve recently introduced a version of our product called Av ant lite.”

Av ant lite allows airlines to offer pretty much all of the same features as the full system, but without as much investment-relying exclusively on the storage at the display, scaling back on the amount of equipment on board the aircraft and effectively getting rid of the servers.

Thales Top Connect suite can also bring a lot of value to airlines looking for new systems.”Connectivity is one of the most significant growth areas for our business,” said Stuart Dunleavy, Thales vice president & general manager, media & connectivity business.”For many years the desire in our industry has been to offer airline passengers the same degree of connectivity and communication that we enjoy on the ground at home or in our office.

“The problem is that trying to deliver that functionality at 36,000ft, 600mph, everywhere around the world is very difficult and it’s an area of the market that has been extremely challenging from a technology and a commercial perspective.”

Being connected is increasingly important for passengers traveling by air.”The in-flight environment is very unusual one, we surrender our liberty and our freedom when we step on boards an aircraft,” said Dunleavy.”We don’t often chose the seat that were sitting in, we don’t chose who we sit next to, we don’t chose when and how were allowed to sit down, or what we eat. We `don’t choose the time its going to take for us to arrive at our destination. So being connected, having some degree of understanding of where we are and when were going to arrive is very, very important.

Connectivity Services

“A big area of opportunity for us is in airline offered connectivity services and working with our airline customers to design and take applications with a specific for the in-flight environment,” he said.

“We have 60 customers around the world, all of whom require this connectivity solution. Its a growing market for us.”

Another option for airlines looking for new systems is the newly-introduced Top Series Ava, which allows passengers and crews to use their own wireless-enabled portable electronic devices to access rich content and applications resident on the Thales Top Series head-end-server via wireless access points in the cabin.

“Ava is a new breed of IFE that Thales is bringing to the marketplace,” explained project manager Julie Lichty.”What were doing is allowing passengers to come on board with their own personal entertainment devices and connect top our server and receive streamed content. It is not something they will download to their devices and walk away with; it will be consumed during the flight.

“Ava is bridging the gap that has been there for a while, where passengers were bringing on their own devices and airlines were losing a branding opportunity .So now were giving them a facilitation tool to present to the passengers a branded solution that will be able to be consumed on their personal devices.”

The benefit of Ava for passengers is that coming on board the aircraft there is not the same learning curve to deal with as there is with a seat back screen.

“Were all very comfortable using our own devices and how you navigate that device,” Said Lichty.

“It can be a stand-alone solution,” she added.”So for the single-aisle aircraft that perhaps don’t have IFE on them, this is a solution that can be brought on board, installed on the aircraft very quickly and the passengers can begin consuming that content once they take off.”

For aircraft that already have IFE on board, Thales is also seeing customer demand for a multi-screen experience.

“Passengers still want to have that beautiful big screen experience but they also like their personal devices.

“So were allowing those passengers to stream content to those devices while still engaging in a better IFE system.”

However, there are still limitations regarding early window content. Mark Horton, VP non-theatrical sales, Paramount Pictures, explained that from the point of view of the studios, protecting content is vital and there are still some doubts over wireless streaming to customer devices.

“We have to protect content-we have huge battles with piracy every day of the year,” he said.

“The airlines are very secure; its very hard to steal from a plane, but when you’re distributing files to a customer device we have no way of knowing what pirate software they have on that device, or in a years time may be developed that could steal.

Passenger Device

“So for personal devices that the passenger bring on to the plane were being very conservative in what we offer. You certainly won’t get our brand new movie being circulated to a passenger device, purely for security reasons. Typically, its going to be an older movie,” said Horton.

While Thales finds away to demonstrate to the studios that it can overcome these piracy concerns, work continues in California on the next innovations IFEC.”The pace of change is dramatic in our business,” said Pellegrini.

Therefore innovation has to be the foundation of a successful business for us.”

Anthony A Juma is the Editor and Director Commercial & Flights Operations at Wings Over Africa Aviation Limited. This is an Air Charter Company that specializes on Air News On Entertainment on Scheduled Passenger &Private Charter Flights Technology.. The website has guided thousands of travelers to achieve their dream holiday. For more information and guidance, visit the site at http://www.wingsoverafrica-aviation.com/index.php/sheduled-flights.html

Anthony A Juma is the Editor and Director Commercial & Flights Operations at Wings Over Africa Aviation Limited. This is an Air Charter Company that specializes on Air News On Entertainment on Scheduled Passenger &Private Charter Flights Technology.. The website has guided thousands of travelers to achieve their dream holiday. For more information and guidance, visit the site at http://www.wingsoverafrica-aviation.com/index.php/sheduled-flights.html

Author Bio: Anthony A Juma is the Editor and Director Commercial & Flights Operations at Wings Over Africa Aviation Limited. This is an Air Charter Company that specializes on Air News On Entertainment on Scheduled Passenger &Private Charter Flights Technology.. The website has guided thousands of travelers to achieve their dream holiday. For more information and guidance, visit the site at http://www.wingsoverafrica-aviation.com/index.php/sheduled-flights.html

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