In-flight connectivity set to soar.
BY PETER BUECKING, SITA PRESIDENT
20 July 2004
Financial Times (FT.Com)
Entertaining passengers as they fly at 10,000 metres is increasingly driven by IT. Passenger demand for a better in-flight experience compels airlines to differentiate their cabin service. To gain a competitive edge many carriers are starting to add the latest connectivity technologies and the race is just starting to take shape.
Almost a third of the world's leading airlines intend to offer a range of cabin connectivity services by 2007, according to the latest results from the Airline IT Trends Survey 2004*, undertaken by Sita, the industry-owned aviation communication services organisation, and Airline Business magazine.
By the end of this year around 15 per cent of airlines will offer SMS (text messaging) onboard their aircraft, using - for now - SMS-enabled inflight entertainment systems rather than passengers' own mobile phones, with another 17 per cent planning to install the service by the end of 2006.
Onboard e-mail is also growing in popularity, with 13 per cent of airlines offering this by year-end and another 17 per cent planning to offer it by the end of 2006. Again this is not possible yet over passengers' own mobile devices, but on certain aircraft passengers' personal notebooks can be used to send and receive e-mails.
In-flight live TV was introduced in 2000, the first fax service offered only in the early 1990s, and in-seat video screens originally introduced in the late 1980s. But it was back in 1961 that the first commercial in-flight entertainment (IFE) system took flight with TWA showing MGM's By Love Possessed. Other carriers took note, and IFE grew to include communication with the introduction of seat-based telephones in the early 1980s.
However, seat phone technologies did not meet consumer needs and the consequence of introducing 'technology for technology sake' and the resultant low usage rates meant that, unfortunately, they became something of a 'flying white elephant'. But recent research has shown there is passenger demand to use mobile phones in-flight - which will soon be possible - and the survey results indicate more than a fifth of airlines want to introduce this service by 2007.
With investment under extremely tight control, and keen to avoid past mistakes, airlines obviously want to ensure passenger usage will sustain and recoup commercial introduction of any connectivity services. The flexibility to provide news, weather, stock quotes and games depends on cost-effective air-ground communication links that will increasingly need to provide broadband access speeds.
Business travellers are often the most frequent flyers and valued customers, and now want to e-mail and have web access as well as instant messaging so they can function as if they were in the office. Leisure travellers also increasingly want to stay connected, while demand from the younger generation for SMS continues to intensify - usage rates of more than 100 messages per flight are being reported.
While primarily aimed at enhancing passenger services, these technologies also offer considerable operational and safety benefits. The opportunity to make real-time updates enhances passenger service, for example to alter a connection due to inclement weather or book a hotel room. Cockpit and cabin staff also benefit as the latest graphical weather displays can help avoid disruptions and provision of real-time engine performance data can help in faster turnarounds.
But more than half of airlines don't yet know when they will introduce these connectivity services on-board. This picture of a few leaders, with a larger trailing group of laggards is a common sight, visible for the introduction of online sales and e-ticketing.
As technologies mature, the numbers introducing systems quickly grow. Adoption rates increase and a 'tipping point' approaches when more than half of airlines have the service and it becomes mainstream. With passenger demand for cabin connectivity speeding adoption rates, the 'tipping point' should be reached in the next four or five years. Connectivity at 10,000m will then have arrived for most travellers.
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