August 2011 Archives

If you're an airline hoping to receive compensation from embattled seat manufacturer Koito Industries, don't hold your breath, say multiple sources.

Kotio falsified test data, including crucial flammability data, on some 150,000 seats in the world fleet.

Several airlines, including All Nippon Airways and Thai Airways International, have filed lawsuits against Koito seeking damages for the Japanese manufacturer's failure to deliver seats in the wake of the scandal.

Koito customers are also now expected to adhere to costly airworthiness directives.

But in April, Koito announced an all-too-convenient plan to isolate its seat unit, while moving its other various businesses - which produce everything from toilet seat covers to traffic lights - into a separate company.

A source with knowledge of the situation tells RWG: "There is no money there. Koito Industries is a huge company and they have convinced the Japanese government to separate the two, so there is nothing there."

Another source says: "In truth, Koito will go bankrupt before they pay anybody."

Meanwhile, a number of industry stakeholders - including regulators - have managed to keep the Koito story from becoming a true public relations nightmare. How? By not discussing it in detail. (The industry is employing a similar strategy with respect to the 'Wi-Fi interference with Honeywell avionics' story, ahem).

But seriously, if I had a dime for every time I've received a "no comment" or "I'm not the right person to speak to about that" in response to my questions about Koito, I'd own a big bag of dimes, more money perhaps than what is sitting in Koito's coffers (that part is speculation, dabnamit).

And so, I am forced to return to industry sources for a sense of where things stand. So, where do things stand?

I'm told that a number of airlines with Koito seats on partial fleets are dragging their feet, a move, it could be argued, being made somewhat easier by the FAA and EASA, which granted some leeway in their ADs (EASA issued an SIB last month to provide further assistance).

"Some of these Koito seats will get old enough to where it makes economical sense to change them anyway. This is the strategy because otherwise the expenditure is enormous and everyone knows that Koito is not going to be able to meet the obligations. I can't see any airworthiness agency taking on liabilities," says a source.

I'm not a big sports enthusiast, with the exception of ladies' ice skating, but even I can appreciate the gravity of what's in store for Southwest Airlines passengers.

RWG has learned that in-flight connectivity service provider Row 44 is poised to announce a deal with Major League Baseball to live stream games in video and audio throughout the season on Southwest aircraft.

Over 2,400 baseball games - including the playoffs and The World Series - will be made available on aircraft equipped with Row 44's Ku-band satellite-supported high-speed Internet solution.

"In addition to the streaming video of games, for those folks who feel like they want to listen to the game - but still want to get that spreadsheet done - they can listen to their home team radio announcer on any game," says a source.

So, in short, if I'm from Philly and you're from Pittsburgh, we can listen to different announcers. There will also be Spanish audio as well as the occasional Spanish broadcast on television, notes the source.

The offering, available "soon", will be part of Row 44's portal, and is one of a number of innovative services aimed at maximizing the bandwidth provided by the Ku pipe. Price points to be announced!

Some 100 Southwest aircraft are equipped with Row 44's system, but I'm told the pace of installations is starting to ramp up.

Virgin America, which offers one of the best embedded in-flight entertainment systems in the US skies, has teamed with Lufthansa Systems to bring streaming video to passengers. I received the following brief email just now:

Media invitation: Virgin America and Lufthansa Systems team up to take in-flight entertainment to new heights.

I presume more info is forthcoming, but it's my understanding that Virgin America is planning to hold a press conference at the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) annual conference and exhibition in Seattle.

Obviously, this opens up all sorts of questions.

Will Virgin America keep its Panasonic Avionics seat-back screens (and if it doesn't, what does that mean for embedded IFE)?

Why didn't Virgin America select the wireless IFE solutions from either of its partners, Gogo or Panasonic Avionics?

With Lufthansa Systems gaining traction (Condor is its launch customer) will the German airline opt for its sister's solution?

How many passengers will be able to access the streaming video (a whole cabin)?

Watch this space! Here is a video of Lufthansa Systems' BoardConnect wireless IFE solution.

Bombardier's new CSeries mock-up - unveiled at the Paris Air Show - is da bomb. Yes, I know I'm not a teenager anymore, but even the most jaded, angst-filled teen would be impressed with what Bombardier was doing at the air show (though he/she would feign nonchalance.)

Most notable for this RWG was the fact that Bombardier showcased Thales and Panasonic Avionics' latest generation monitors in the CSeries economy class seats. Both in-flight entertainment systems looked fantastic, but I gotta admit the Thales Avant - with its 12.1 inches of loven - really wowed.

Even though most airlines won't offer such a large screen in economy class (excepting Middle Eastern carriers), Thales was smart to feature it in the CSeries mock-up, daring would-be airline customers to dream big while putting its best foot forward from a visual standpoint.

Apple iPads can be found in airport lounges. Apple iPads are being used as airport check-in kiosks. Apple iPads have been handed to flight attendants to personalize the passenger experience. Apple iPads are being distrubted to pilots to use as electronic flight bags (EFBs). At virtually every touch point in the travel experience - and inside the cockpit - the iPad tablet computer has taken the aviation industry by storm.

And why not? It seems to be the next best thing since sliced bread (and yes there is an app for baking bread).

The iPad is a transmitting personal electronic device or T-PED so naturally it is at its most useful, its most engaging, its most fantastic state when it is connected.

However, while connected iPads make sense for passengers, connected iPad-turned-EFBs for commercial pilots still need to jump a few hurdles. For starters, stakeholders need to be sure that iPads transmitting in real time in flight don't interfere with avionics.

One long-time pilot, who flies for a major Gogo-equipped airline in the United States, thinks concerns about electro magnetic interference with avionics is a lot of stuff and nonsense, and, hello, would like to have access to the same information as passengers in the cabin, via an iPad.

Here's our friendly captain's take on connected iPads in the cockpit:

"The iPad has the potential to be very, very effective in our environment. I can't imagine a scenario of a security threat. Elementary fire walls would take care of that sort of thing.

"What's ironic is that we're cruising along and I'm limited to looking at my forward looking radar looking 200-some miles ahead and looking at weather from that perspective instead of being able to access - like the person in first class or economy with their iPad or laptop connected to Gogo - all the things I like to access before I leave on a flight, like real time weather mapping. They have access to that in flight. I could do it, but it's against our policies for me to open up my laptop and connect to Gogo, but it's kind of ironic to me that we don't have access to it.

"I'm thinking we could really, really harness that power and be so much better informed in the cockpit than we are now, and of course the company is looking at this as an end all and be all communications device."

But, says I, what do you make of the recent kerfuffle regarding Wi-Fi interference with Honeywell display units (discovered during Gogo STC on Boeing 737NG aircraft)?

"I guarantee that every single flight there are at least a couple dozen devices that are 'on' from taxi to takeoff to cruise to landing to taxing in. I've never ever seen any evidence that a personal electronic device has any effect on navigation communication or displays. You could have a Ham Radio in the back and it wouldn't affect us. There are many times I've forgotten to turn off my own iPhone and I've observed no in-flight abnormality whatsoever. This is one pilot that basically pooh-poohs the idea that these airplanes need to be hardened further, because I believe they are shielded enough today.

"If everything blanked out it would be very disturbing. If it blanks out and stays blanked out, then I'm concerned. Sometimes displays go a little wonky and then settle down. It has nothing to do with interference, but that's the nature of the equipment.

"[Concerns over interference] is a bunch of poppycock. Then there was the Northwest Airlines crew that were supposedly busy on their laptops (I'm not exactly sure that was happening in that cockpit). The bottom line in that incident was not that they were using electronic devices in the cockpit. The problem was that they were completely oblivious to what the aircraft was doing. I've seen, over the years, we're reading books and newspapers in the cockpit because, if you sit for many hours of flight and stare at instrumentation, that's when safety is compromised because your mind is not engaged."

Okay, okay. It's all well and good to use a connected iPad as a Class I or Class II EFB, but what about Class III?

"If you're plugging [your EFB] into the actual flight management system you're definitely introducing possible threats and concerns regarding security and in that case, we'd have to have a separate data pipe and that may be what [naysayers] are thinking because that would be a way to keep us from surfing the web at will and checking our own email and going to personal sites."

I'm not convinced TechNews advances this story in any substantial way, but it's interesting to see how people are growing so accustomed to having in-flight Wi-Fi they expect stakeholders to do what it takes to ensure they get to keep it.

"It [Wi-Fi] better interfere good because I like my Wi-Fi in the air," says the host.

The conversation begins at minute 22:04.

Blink and you might miss it in his article, but Flightglobal defense expert Stephen Trimple is reporting that carbon nanotubes (CNT) may find their way into commercial aircraft cabins.

A US company called Nanocomp Technologies sees an opportunity for using CNT to replace wiring systems in airline in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems, reports Trimble, who also authors Flightglobal's defense-focused The Dew Line blog.

He quotes Nanocomp chief executive officer Peter Antoinetteas as saying: "That application [IFE wiring] is easier to achieve certification for, compared to navigation and safety-critical systems."

A carbon nanotube is a very, very tiny cylinder, a tube-shaped molecule made of carbon, so we should picture ulltra-thin, ultra-light wiring for IFE.

Read Trimble's entire article here. And plug "carbon nanotubes" into YouTube for a quick video tutorial. This video explains how carbon nanotubes are 200 times stronger than steel.

I can see it now. The tweets. The FaceBook updates. The miles high boasts. "I'm tweeting from space!!" Why? Because Virgin Galactic is looking to offer in-flight connectivity to passengers on its suborbital space tourism flights (they obviously won't need any seat-back entertainment for that ride).

RWG has learned that Sir Richard Branson is studying his connectivity options for SpaceShipTwo.

But what might he choose?

If you're going up and back to space, the aircraft would effectively serve as the satellite. In other words, it won't need to talk to a satellite, but rather a great big ground dish (a steerable antenna) that's talking to the aircraft.

Says a source: "The actual band used is X-band, which is in the gigahertz range. One of the big things of Ham Radio is you get a dish and bounce signals off spacecraft, or bounce them off the moon, so it's moon bounce communications."

Errr, anybody got a spare $102,000 laying around?

Two years ago Delta Air Lines quietly began the process of building a business case for developing an information system that would harness the power of in-flight connectivity and could be incorporated into its airline operations.

At that time, nobody at Delta wanted to talk about the top-secret Future Operations Communications Information System (FOCIS) project, which envisaged treating each of Delta's Gogo-connected aircraft - and ultimately a connected international fleet - as a node on its IT network.

But in Delta's Flight Operations Weekly Update, dated 14 August and obtained by RWG, company senior vice-president-flight operations Steve Dickson finally revealed some details of the carrier's initial strategy, which includes staying in touch with its pilot workforce through connected electronic flight bags (EFBs).

Some 50 pilots, divided into three groups, have been selected to test various tablets, starting with the Apple iPad and moving next to the Motorola Xoom, and potentially a third type. Read about it on Flightglobal's dedicated IFEC/interiors channel.

Dickson doesn't mince words when he says: "I have no doubt that this is the beginning of reshaping how we do business in Flight Ops. It will transform how we handle information, how we communicate, and how we operate the jet."

Obviously, there are still plenty of open questions about Delta's plan.

One somewhat critical industry observer notes:

"The FAA would go ape shit if the carrier allowed any type of critical data to be accessed through the [Gogo] cabin connectivity. You can do certain non-critical things, such as real-time weather mapping. One of the things you don't want to have is more distraction in the cockpit. How much do you want to give pilots? Do you want them to focus on the instruments? Right now, in the wake of the AF447 crash, the big discussion is how do you train the pilots to fly [my colleague David Learmount argues that pilot skills are atrophying]. So yes, Delta wants to do this, but is this something that all airlines will embark on? No."

So what's the immediate next step for ambitious Delta?

"Along with the tablet testing, in the next few weeks, Flight Ops will be hosting an Information Optimization Team that is comprised of Flight Ops Leadership, technical writers, Chief and Lead Line Check Pilots, line pilots and ALPA representatives," says Dickson.

"I have chartered this group to design what our information structure would look like in a paperless and electronic environment. We are anticipating that IOT recommendations will take about 24 months to implement, and we hope to execute in conjunction with the tablet product development and deployment. It will include an interim strategy taking the Jeppesen Airside Kit into account and a transition plan to an electronic information format."

A little levity to start the week (for the record, I never turn off my rack power).

Not only is Panasonic Avionics seeing massive demand for in-flight connectivity - fielding RFPs for a staggering 1,500 aircraft - the company now has evidence to prove what it has been saying all along, that people are data hungry!

In a slide provided exclusively to RWG, Panasonic revealed that in May and June of this year, the average data volume per user of its eXConnect in-flight high-speed Internet solution was 95 MB and reached as high as 155 MB on 29 June. It wasn't me! :-)

The solution is currently offered on board Lufthansa long-haul aircraft, but will be offered on Turkish, SAS, Cathay, Dragonair and Gulf Air. Panasonic is also understood to be working with Transaero and Japan Airlines. It has declined to comment on discussions.

Why is Zodiac's SiT seat-centric in-flight entertainment (IFE) system offered linefit on Airbus A330/A340 aircraft, while the likes of Lumexis' fiber optic-based IFE system and IMS's own seat-centric solution (pictured above) is not? Well folks, like so many things in this world, cash plays a big part.

Airframers can't afford (and are unwilling) to do the kind of engineering, integration work, certification and qualification testing required for every IFE system that comes to the market. And so the cost of ensuring that a system is compatible with the aircraft's architecture lands squarely in the lap of the vendor.

In essence, the vendor needs to pony up before it gets to put on a show.

That's exactly what SiT did to break the Panasonic/Thales duopoly and gain linefit status on the A330/A340, says a source with knowledge of the situation. "They made a significant contribution to cover the costs and it had a customer that wanted the system on the aircraft (Royal Jordanian)," adds the source.

But SiT had something else working in its favour. The company is part of the Zodiac group and Zodiac is an approved Airbus supplier. As any reputable airframer does, Airbus goes through a rigorous process to approve its suppliers. It looks at the quality of a vendor's systems, how the firm manages its supply chain, how it manages its inventory, and customer support, and how it industrializes its stuff (i.e. where does it source its parts from).

Additionally - and significantly - Airbus doesn't do anything until it has a reasonably sized customer saying it wants the equipment installed on its new aircraft.

So, if you're a Lumexis or an IMS, the time-line for gaining linefit status depends on if you can meet all the criteria (and not on whether the system is super, awesome, and freaking fantastic!)

Oh, and it helps if you're able to maintain a level of respectability within the industry. Aviointerios, for instance, did itself NO favours when it showcased a clearly uncertifiable saddle-seat at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg a few years back ."Aviointeriors shot itself in the foot," says the source. It shot itself in the foot while riding in a saddle? Well alrighty then.

Get ready to knock out your fellow passengers in flight!

A new multiplayer social gaming platform for in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems allows passengers to host, invite and play multiplayer games with each in the sky.

The so-called 'Playport' platform, which has been created by Western Outdoor Interactive, even allows airlines to host cabin-wide contests for gaming passengers.

"Basically, Playport finally brings value to gaming on-board that has not been matched," says Raoul Nanavati, marketing manager at Western Outdoor Interactive, which will be displaying its products at the upcoming APEX show in Seattle.

Playport will be available on Panasonic Avionics and Thales IFE systems, according to Nanavati. "It's actually something great for systems that are in place now," he says, adding that Western outdoor Interactive expects the system to be on board in "a few months".

Thales has launched a new Android app so that attendees of the forthcoming Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) conference and exhibition in Seattle can keep track of Thales news and events at the show as well as access a map of the show floor, get directions and more.

Passengers on board American Airlines' Boeing 767-200 aircraft will see the following splash page when they access the carrier's new streaming video product, powered by Gogo.

Also, check out Gogo's YouTube video about how to use the new service, which is being offered on American's entire 767-200 fleet - primarily transcontinental flights between New York JFK and Los Angeles and JFK and San Francisco. Customers do not need to buy in-flight internet to use the 'Entertainment on Demand' product. TV shows sell for $ .99 and movies for $3.99.

A leader in the ancillary revenue space Malaysian low-cost, long-haul carrier AirAsia X generates a whopping $41.60 per passenger on top of standard air fare, according to a new Amadeus 'ancillary revenue yearbook' report by IdeaWorks.

Here is how AirAsia X's ancillaries break down in IdeaWorks' report:



But what's missing here? Ancillaries from AirAsia X's portable in-flight entertainment systems, of course! One can only guess that the revenue is so negligible it doesn't warrant much discussion (you'll find that the report says very little about IFE and connectivity; search the words  'WiFi', 'Gogo', 'LiveTV' and 'entertainment'... while these types of solutions are clearly the cost doing business in today's world, they are still largely cost centres).

But AirAsia X expects its IFE pay-for-service fortunes to change when it begins offering its streaming video service (for about three Euros per movie) - plus light in-flight connectivity - to passengers beginning at the end of this year.

As announced by AirAsia X in Paris (an announcement recorded on my handy iPhone here), the carrier's electronic flight bag (EFB) provider Flight Focus has teamed with content firm Tune Box to make wireless in-flight entertainment a reality for AirAsia X passengers.

Flight Focus' current EFB comprises two screens, an Iridium antenna, the processor/server and the wireless network for the Iridium connection. "That altogether weighs 42 lbs," Flight Focus vice president global sales and business development Stef Slavujevic told RWG in an interview today. "The additional weight we put on board include a 5- to 50 terabyte server (depending on an airline's requirements), some additional cabling, and the wired network takeup points in the cabin. The additional weight for the entire kit for an Airbus A320 is going to be another 100 lbs."

So the biggest piece of weight is that big ole - up to 50 terabyte! - server. But that, in part, is why Flight Focus believes it will be able to support 100% uptake on-board (which won't likely be required during most flights...for now).

Has Flight Focus discovered some sort of secret sauce to be able to guarantee assess to all passengers? Hmmm....the proof will be in the pudding, as they say!

Meanwhile, don't be surprised if Flight Focus along with Tune Box and AirAsia X make some exciting announcements in the weeks and months to come, including providing clarity on a connectivity partnership.

Let's just say that I've had to do a lot of editing in the following video, which was taken during the Paris air show (where I was a very busy bunny!). Bluetooth in the cockpit lads! The rest will be revealed soon