Entertainment

Inflight entertainment is mostly pretty bad. That is, unless the airline has either invested in retrofitting their jets or outright bought new jets.

If you are the unfortunate many that prefer to travel with "legacy" carriers like Lufthansa or United, you will no doubt know that most of their jets have a central projector and the choices of entertainment are non existent.

However if you happen to travel with a broader set of carriers, then you must have seen the newer systems.

The best system I've experienced is on Singapore Airlines, but that was in First Class so let's exclude them.

Within the US, the best coach class entertainment system is with Delta. Virgin America, a new entrant, may have a better system. I'll fly them later this month and report back.

JetBlue is second best. Both Delta and JetBlue have live TV as well as movies, games and music. However, Delta's selection is better.

Alaska has done a smart job of introducing Digeplayers - digital entertainment systems that you can rent and place it on your seat back table to watch. It has a variety of movies, TV shows, games and more. However since it isn't attached to the seat, you have to close it down if you wish to use the seat back table for anything else. American Airlines is following suit, though only on their transcontinental flights.

The only system better than Delta's is Continental's on their 777-200. Only some of their jets have them. The system is very similar to what's found on Delta, only with far more options. More movies, more music and more games. It also appears to have been prepped for INTERNET access.

This all makes a lot of sense. The systems used by JetBlue, Continental and Delta run on a version of Linux, a computer operating system. Without digressing, I'll say that Linux is a powerful, yet cheap alternative to more traditional systems and thus allows an airline to experiment more freely with their options.

The ideal entertainment system, next ...

Why live TV on airplanes is bad ...

Ok TV sucks. That's not because of the technology or anything, it's just that there's rarely anything good on. So much so that with the abundance of channels that show nothing but nothing, people actually feel safe watching TV programs, for that connection to their reality.

Now that airlines like JetBlue and Delta have premiered DirecTV and Dish Network respectively, it brings about an interesting mix of experiences.

The novelty factor is astronomically high. Watching even 36 of those hundreds of channels while flying across the country is amazing.

You have the Food Network, NBC, Discovery and more.

Fly as often as I do and you'd probably do what you'd do at home - channel surf for a while. With at most 36 channels, you'd likely soon tire and turn off the TV.

However even if you were to keep flipping channels, you'd become aware of an interesting problem with live broadcast TV - it was designed to be viewed by a stationary TV.

When you fly across the country, or for that matter, the world, the jet passes over vast tracts of land where the only residents are bison or mustangs, or rattlesnakes. The cable companies don't cover these regions, and if there is coverage, it's because of the spill over from a nearby satellite.

During these times, you have the dubious pleasure of flipping through frozen channels at best, and a "signal not found" message at worst.

It would make so much more sense for airlines to provide pre-recorded programming. From the perspective of the passenger, the majority of the programs are not time sensitive so even if it were to have been recorded earlier, the entertainment value would have been preserved.

So is live TV in jets about entertainment, or an addiction to real time information, like blackberries and cell phones?

Environmentally Friendly?

Let's face it. Humans are the least environmentally friendly creatures on the planet. Sure, there are some bats whose excrements can be toxic and end up poisoning the environment, but there aren't billions of them flying around. There are billions of people and a lot of them are flying around.

Let's forget for the moment that air travel consumes huge amounts of air fuel, otherwise known as kerosene. Being a fossil fuel, it is almost as polluting as petrol, but those issues are being dealt with differently. What about how the airlines handle their inflight services?

Pleasantly, airlines are slowly opening their operations to environmentally friendly methods. More has to be done though.

Delta has introduced an amenity bag that is made of mostly biodegradable material. I was very pleased to examine the tooth brush made of corn fiber and the recycled paper bag holder.

This got me to thinking, how much of the internal operations of the airline can be environmentally friendly? Startlingly, a lot of the material used in inflight operations can be recyclable. Cups, bags, bottles, trays, water and more.

It would certainly be a pro business move to be environmentally friendly as renewable sources, though expensive to start up, have an overall lower cost of production.

Delta's Two Jet Configurations

A few years ago, Delta Airlines had stared their discount carrier, Song. I spent some time wondering why it was called Song and I think I may have figured it out - "He had his wishes for a song".

I guess somewhere in the history of the English language, songs were equated with the cheapest form of compensation for a service. Regardless, Song went bust and they got fully integrated into Delta.

Apparently, the interior of those jets that had been designed to impress and they have done well.

In addition to a comfortable color scheme of blue and grey, these jets all have a seat back interactive entertainment system that, as it turns out, runs on the popular free UNIX like OS - Linux.

This system, very similar to the ones used by JetBlue, Jet Airways and Continental, has a high resolution touch screen that provides access to movies, shows, music, games and a flight map.

All in all, transcontinental flights are wonderfully short and comfortable.

Unfortunately, the standard Delta jets are only slowly being transformed into this format.

On latest observation, Delta Airlines has invested in redesigning some of their 767 jets. While the redesign doesn't add their entertainment system to the jets, it does freshen up the interior.

Primarily, the plastics have been changed, all the lamps are brighter, the lavatory lights, seatbelt lights and overhead nozzles are new, and most obviously, the boring brown seats have been covered with their blue and grey pleather material.

The most useful additions are the mini pockets, which are on the seat back pocket. These pockets are very useful for placing the iPod, Blackberry and other small electronics within easy reach without having to dig around for them in the seat back pocket itself.

Delta's Revamped Website

Those of us who were once Delta customers probably recall how aweful their service was. In fact, I'd wager a guess that many of us were pleased when we heard the news of their possible demise.

Now that they are out of bankruptcy, they've done a tidy job of improving everything about their operations. Most notable is their website. It allows you to do everything regarding your flight online, and in my experience, has very reasonable fares, albeit with connections.

In addition, like Continental, they give you 24 hours to cancel a web ticket with a full refund.

Then comes the obvious question - what about their flights?

I suspect their website had a bug earlier this year as there was a certain behavior that has ceased to appear. If I tried booking my tickets too close to my date of travel, when I used to book discounted coach seats, I'd also get First Class seats at coach prices. For most of this summer, I flew Delta first class at full coach fares. Sadly, this has stopped.

Delta has two configurations for their jets.

More on that shortly ...