Airlines Phasing Out Screens Because Passengers Are All on Your Devices | Hacker News Reader

Airlines Phasing Out Screens Because Passengers Are All on Your Devices

nytimes.com

I feel like I'm going to be one of the few (if only) dissenting voices against everyone else here: I actually LIKE the screens in the back of the chair in front of me. My general experience with them for long flights, while buggy with a bad screen, etc. has been very good. This is due to what is generally a pretty good selection of movies, often with many I haven't seen but know about and would like to see, or fun surprises that I would have never considered otherwise. (example: I got to see "Shin Godzilla" on a flight to Japan recently. I had never heard about it, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting movies I saw of the multiple I selected, and just generally a very interesting movie in general with strong commentary against the government's handling of the power plant disaster) These turn out to be very beneficial for me, as when I'm on a long plane ride I often "shut down" and don't want to do anything except brainlessly watch movies or potentially read certain books that suck me in very well. On the long flights to Australia and Japan I've done recently this has allowed the flight to pass quickly and easily for me.

I'm sad to see them go. I don't want to watch movies on some silly app on my phone which is much smaller than the screens now. I want to use my phone to read books and save the battery charge for texting people or driving when I land.

To add to this, the screens are definitely buggy still and ~15 min reboots are not uncommon, but all of these are HARDWIRED. I'm scared of how bad it will be when everyone tries to connect to the wifi to stream the same content.

Managing the local streaming server is not going to be any easier either.

I've seen it on Air Canada (or Red or Jazz, or whatever it was called that day), and it actually worked quite well. They offered to rent tablets for people who didn't have devices.

I suspect managing the streaming server isn't going to be much more complicated than managing the old wired content sever... On the other hand, not needind kilometers of cables for entertainment, not needing to maintain them, makes a huge difference for the airlines. This is not as simple as pulling a cable in your house, planes have crashed because of fires from bad maintenance/install of cables, including cables for entertainment.

I'd hope they'd have separate cable trays for critical and noncritical wires. And we have flame-retardant plastic that isn't deadly poisonous.

Anecdotal, I know, but I was on a flight a few months ago where the wire for the hand held controller for the entertainment system had gotten so hot it burnt my hand. I'm not sure how far away the autoignition temperature of cotton is from the burn-my-hand-temperature, but I suppose it's possible that if it was cotton on that wire as opposed to my skin it may have caught fire. And while the wire delivering that content was non critical and probably on a seperate power network to the main systems of the plane, a fire on a plane is a fire on a plane regardless of which system caused it.

You can cause a full thickness burn at really low temperatures. Water will cause a 2nd or 3rd degree burn in 2 seconds at 65 C.

http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_wa...

I think regular cotton burns at something like 200 C. Cotton on a plane is going to have fire retardant properties.

Burns are complicated, but if you'd touched something that hot you'd have had an instant burn, probably with blistering.

Maybe it's a function of how many people are using it so far but the WiFi entertainment option on United works great. With AmazonFire tablets available for $50 it seems pretty silly at this point for airlines to install extremely expensive screens that also take up leg space in many cases.

It may be a pain for the family that travels once a year but, hey, they didn't actually have movie options until recently anyway. I'm sure they can deal with it.

I posted above but my experience with United and those sitting around me on my two international flights was horrible. Nobody could connect, or some could and then would get disconnected 10 minutes into the movie. I'd rather have a crappy screen on the back of the seat that works.

I've used it maybe a dozen times and never had an issue. That said I always travel with pre-loaded TV and movies (and books) in any case so the inflight system is just a bonus.

Some of the airlines (e.g. Alaskan) will actually rent you an iPad loaded with movies for a couple of bucks. Still saves on weight, and let's the people who really want a curated experience to use it.

The selection of movies is one (useful) thing. Having the back of my head constantly poked from behind by less than delicate fingers is something I won't miss at all.

On the Qantas domestic aircraft without seat-back screens they hand out iPads that can access the aircraft's entertainment streaming, and there's a strap thing to hook the tablet onto the seat in front - so the overall experience isn't all that different.

With the exception that you can also download their IFE app onto your own devices if you want.

I'm with you 100%.

I used to travel between New Zealand and UK every few months for years (about 28 hours in the air), and as soon as I get on the plane I want to forget my device exists. Or any device for that matter - please don't give me an ipad to fiddle with.

I associate it with work and the outside world, and love these small chances to switch off completely.

I suspect many here who are running startups would be surprised to hear what a wonderful short PROPER holiday long haul flights can be. No comms - just sleep, kindle, and those crappy screens on the back of the seat. Wonderful.

After about 15 years of this an unexpected side effect - planes put me to sleep. Even if it's the wrong time of day or I've recently had caffeine, just the environment association now makes me usually fall asleep before the wheels are up.

Good riddance. I've turned off the screen on every flight I've been on because I don't like commercials and glare in my face for hours at a time. That makes the planes which reboot their entertainment system (and implicitly turn the screen back on) 3-4 times during takeoff and ascent particularly annoying to me in particular.

Which airline do you fly? I don't recall ever seeing any commercials on United, ANA, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, or Malaysia Airlines. Most of the systems have been fairly decent, although it was a massive disappointment last time I rode on ANA and found out they had replaced all the SNES games with generic mobile phone tier games.

Domestic United flights with DirecTV show advertising when the screens aren't otherwise in use.

I've seen ads on these screens while in taxi for departure on Air Canada Rouge (domestic) flights. Really annoying, I couldn't find a way to turn off the display.

You tune the brightness down until the screen turns off. Then they reboot and default back on. Repeat for leaving the gate, taxiing, post take-off, etc...

Delta definitely has them, even on trans Pacific flights. So does Aeroflot, but you can fast forward through them and anyways I can't Russian. I believe AirChina had them when I last flew them also.

Emirates have tourism advertising as well as, funnily enough, advertising for the entertainment system your using right at that moment.

American runs promos for NBC shows during the "commercial breaks" of the NBC shows they run on domestic flights. Most of the time the promo is some sort of short interview or the cast member of the show saying "Hi, I'm so and so from NBC's such and such. Thanks for flying American" or something to that effect. I've never flown outside of north american so I'm not really sure how the in-flight entertainment is on anything longer than a 6 hour flight.

Ditto. It would be nice if the screens defaulted to off. Then I wouldn't have the glare from the row in front of me, and the person next to me, who I know aren't watching either, but either don't care to turn it off, or don't know how. It's not blindingly obvious how to turn the screen off.

For what it's worth, I have never seen a system reboot/crash, and I must have used it at least 30 flights

Not crashes. More like "important" events.

Waiting for takeoff. Turn off the screen. Plane is preping to move. System starts up and your screen turns on again. Turn it off. Safety video requires screen to turn back on. Turn it off after. There's one more event that I can't recall that turns it back on again after that. Turn it off. Now you are good until preping to land... I'm not surprised almost everyone leaves their screen on all the time even at night.

I'd like to see airlines install some universal holders for various tablets/phones. I'm happy to see the terrible systems go, but holding a phone or propping it up on the tray table wasn't a perfect alternative.

Now that Netflix allows me to download content to my devices, I have no need for the inflight entertainment systems or the new wireless systems they are talking about in this article.

Newer seats have this sort of hard pocket at the top. With certain tablet cases it's perfect for hanging the tablet.

http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/201...

You would still need a cover but definitely in the right direction.

I'm actually OK with this. The screens are generally of very poor quality. If they replace them with USB ports, that's all we need!

Especially with Netflix Offline mode, there's basically no need for these anymore.

having to stare at your lap or hold a screen at eye level is pretty hellish.

Selfie stick propped between the seat cushions. Get with the millennial times ;)

Some of those screens look literally decades old. Horrible viewing angles, huge pixels, etc.

I was under the impression that the viewing angles were intentionally poor for the sake of privacy and not having glare in the faces of the people behind you.

I think this can be used as a pretext, but these screens look extremely old anyway. My TN monitor 10 years ago had a much better picture.

and horrible color reproduction and a contrast ratio of about 50:1.

I like being able to watch movies or TV shows on the plane. I don't keep that stuff on my phone and I don't own a tablet. I guess I can hope it'll lower the cost of the ticket, but that's not going to happen. :)

Many flights now have free streaming content from on-board servers via the WiFi. It's basically equivalent to what you'd get from the old screens but you can use your own device to get at it. No need to keep large movies/shows around on your device at all.

I recently flew internationally on United. They have this. You need a phone or iPad with the app and then you can pull up movies and shows. I flew round trip and it worked about 20% of one way and 0% the other way. I had counted on it so didn't bring books or any other entertainment and had to stare at the back of the seat in front of me for 14 hours with simmering hatred for United.

One point: whereas before if the screen didn't work it was their responsibility, now they can blame your device and there's no real recourse.

I get that the other built in screens are not perfect but I've only had a problem with it not working maybe 1 out of 30 flights.

I ended up getting a 100 dollar voucher which will never be used since United is garbage.

Honestly, I'd never have any confidence in the availability of inflight entertainment. Carry your own even if it's just throwing in a paperback.

Even though I like the Thanos GeoMaps app on the AA IFE aystem, I am okay with this. IFEs are expensive and most people consume media on their phones or laptops anyway. Ultimately this will save the airlines a lot of money; hopefully, this savings will get passed on to us.

I'm all for this, although I do enjoy the map of the flight. Maybe there'll be an app that provides that info...

There is. Download the FlightAware app, it gives a lot more info and detail. And if you're interested in listening as well, check out the LiveATC app.

If you're interested in more detailed info (like aeronautical charts and such), I recommend ForeFlight [0]. It's what I use when I'm actually flying. It also uses the GPS in your mobile device rather than the slightly delayed position information from FlightAware.

[0] https://www.foreflight.com/

Theyre only good for long flights when theyre packed with free movies. Other than that it doesnt matter. If theyre gonna make you pay to watch anything yeah, just get rid of it

Have they not already? I haven't seen seat-back screens in years, and last time I did the entertainment system wasn't functioning so you couldn't actually use it.

Where do you fly?

All the Australian, Asian, ME, and Canadian flights I've been on in the past 5 years have had them except for porter air which is short haul flights from Toronto. Really just US airlines I've seen this happening in but they were always pretty barebones.

Out of curiosity are you primarily flying short haul flights in US / Canada? (I know Air Canada rouge has ditched a lot of screens.)

Im genuinely curious because almost all flights I've been on have screens in the seats.

I recently flew on Air Canada and Polish LOT, and they both had functioning screens and movies... maybe it's just your airline or region?

I flew on Emirates a few months ago and not only did they indeed have seat-back screens, they also had a really nice selection of movies. Lots of choices, including a number of 'sets' like the entire Star Wars series, the entire LOTR collection, etc. Nothing can really make a 14 hour flight good, but I was pretty satisfied with the quality of the hardware and content on the Emirates plane.

Bummer.

Virgin America had the coolest flight-safety video ever: https://youtu.be/DtyfiPIHsIg

Flight safety videos will probably still be shown on overhead monitors. Some kind of safety announcement is compulsory, and the video is a good branding opportunity.

I find that VX one pretty grating though, and will probably be seen as embarrassingly 2010s in a few years time. Some of the Air New Zealand ones are good though.

Yeah, QF has already done this (for their domestic flights at least, as of last August) and they had motorised overhead monitors that folded down for the safety video.

And roundabout 2030 or so, a Nostalgia Critic-equivalent will post a 64k holovid to YouTube entitled "Hey, remember that Virgin America safety video?"

Oh wait, something like this has already happened: https://youtu.be/1QgWAxkHZWc

Maybe the first few times, after ~20 it really starts to lose its luster

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