The Shephard Press Ltd, Sep 2005

For a branch of the entertainment industry, the IFE business has more than its fair share of dismal jimmies. Not only are they not very entertaining themselves, but they also take a dim view of anything new, fresh and, well, entertaining.

Take one of the big success stories of 2004 - the handheld digEplayer. The jeremiahs had a field day when inventor Bill Boyer and his young team set off in search of customers not much more than 12 months ago. ``No studio will trust them with content,`` they squawked. ``The players will all be stolen. The flight attendants will be driven to distraction. The sky will surely fall.`` Hit the fast-forward button and what do we hear? Yes, the voice of Michael O`Leary, Ryanair`s famously dollar-loving CEO, revealing in December that passenger uptake in the first month of the low-fare carrier`s digEplayer trial had been exactly ten times the three per cent needed to cover the investment. So ecstatic was the ferociously competitive O`Leary that he briefly dropped his guard, urging the opposition to get into IFE too.

A nasty moment for the doomsters, and not the only one last year. Broadband connectivity has been the cause of much tooth-sucking in recent times. As have onboard cellphone and a well engineered scheme to get rid of pesky IFE seatboxes once and for all. Well, sorry all you Nostradamuses out there, it`s been nothing but blue skies for the three of them lately.

Broadband trailblazer Connexion by Boeing now has four airlines offering service, with another four in the pipe. Chief competitor Inmarsat is due to launch its first broadband satellite this spring, has been named as the Airbus solution of choice, and is hearing from its equipment and service community that the airlines are queuing up for what they have to offer. Having feasted heartily on the failure of inflight phone over the years, the vultures were looking forward to tucking into onboard cellphone by way of dessert. No such luck: providers ARINC/Telenor and OnAir are sure they`ve cracked the technical problem and are knuckling down realistically to the hard work of winning the approval of the airworthiness and national telecoms authorities.

``Out of sight and out of harm`s way`` is the philosophy behind Inflight Canada`s iCACHE system for the underfloor installation of the IFE kit that currently sits beneath the seat, to the detriment of passenger comfort and its own serviceability.Despite the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face good sense of iCACHE, it was stonily ignored by the industry right up until October, when the reborn Air Canada declared that from now on all its seatboxes were going under the floor. What`s more, the carrier is using iCACHE to take IFE into terra incognita - its fleet of brand-new regional jets.

And here lies the real significance of Air Canada`s swashbuckling move – the word is out that embedded IFE has now been squeezed down to weight levels and form factors that make it a realistic option for the low-fare and regional carriers who are casting around for service differentiators. Which is why this year`s Inflight Passenger Entertainment and Communcations (IPEC) conference in London is yoked with the new Low-Fare and Regional Aviation (LARA) Summit. The events of the last 12 months make this event a marriage made in heaven.

So if your tastes run to sackcloth, ashes and half-empty cups, please go and find another parade on which to rain – IFE/communications is in the shape of its life and looking to go from strength to strength in 2005.

Key Features:

- Directory of international airlines who operate inflight passenger entertainment and communications systems onboard. Including fleet info and contacts.

- Directory of worldwide suppliers and manufacturers and inflight entertainment and passenger communications systems and products.

- Industry trends articles

* This product is pre-publication and is due to be released in Sep 2005. Order now at this special pre-publication price.