April 3, 2006 – AMERICAN Airlines has selected a handheld device from IMS Inflight to provide IFE in the business cabins of its Boeing 767-300 fleet. These aircraft are also to be equipped with IMS’ Terminal Data Loader (TDL), which can accept new digital content either wirelessly or from removable media such as DVD, CD, USB 2.0 memory stick or AIT tape.

The latest in a series of products that includes the original PEA and the P-series, announced last autumn, the new device features a 10.6in screen, the largest to be offered to date in handheld IFE, and an exceptionally large 80Gb hard drive.

The IMS handheld is part of a package of improvements to business class in American’s 58-aircraft fleet of 767-300s that also includes a lie-flat seat, advanced lighting and roomier overhead bins. The first refurbished aircraft will be introduced this spring, with the rest to be completed between September and early next year. It is understood that each aircraft will carry a stock of 48 devices and that the order from IMS totals around 2,800 units.

Business passengers on the 767s – they operate on American’s transatlantic routes, and within the USA and Latin America – will have access to a selection of four early-window films, four late-window, two classics and two shorts, and nearly ten hours of television content, including popular sitcoms, dramas and content from Discovery Networks. The portable will also carry a selection of interactive games, music videos and 100 audio CDs, and will give access to daily Reuters news in video and text formats.

IMS will provide both hardware and all related content services, including content acquisition, licensing, encoding, integration, security and delivery.

“American successfully trialled PEA last year,” says IMS chairman Joe Renton. “Since then we have been working with the airline on the best way to use our technology to meet their needs. The result is a new portable with a 10.6in, 16x9-aspect-ratio touchscreen that fits into the 767 seatback.”

The device will draw power from a docking station in the seatback and will normally be viewed there. But it can also be removed and placed where the passenger chooses. Passengers will also have the use of a Bose QuietComfort 2 noise-cancelling headset to exclude cabin noise and enhance audio quality.

“We believe our customers will love this system,” says Mary McKee, American’s managing director of inflight products. “They can leave the device in the seatback for convenient hands-free viewing or move it to the tray table or even the lie-flat bed.”

IMS believes that this system configuration will lead in time to content loading at the seat via a cabin WiFi wireless network. The IMS Terminal Data Loaders destined for the American 767s can use a range of wireless technologies to bring content on to the aircraft.

“Once a WiFi standard for onboard data transfer was in place you would never again have to move the portables for content loading,” comments IMS content consultant Michael Childers. “This could be the platform of the future – an embedded data loader on the aircraft with wireless clients that are portable in nature but which do not have to leave the in-seat docking station for content refreshment.”