Recently in Quirky Stuff Category

Photographer Joe Walker sent the following photographic gem to me today. It's a pic of the Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 making its first flight (snapped returning to Paine Field). She's a beauty, but I must lament the lack of a Ku-band antenna. I know there are reasons why this bird isn't fitted with the in-flight high-speed Internet it so deserves (some that make sense, others that don't), but still. The Lufthansa 747-8 looks naked without its hump. #nufsaid

Rockwell Collins will tell you that it never really left the world of in-seat audio/video on demand (AVOD). And, quite technically, Rockwell Collins is right. The company's eTES and dTES in-flight entertainment systems are in operation on myriad aircraft in the world fleet, and the firm has continued to support these solutions for its customers.

But Rockwell Collins' decision in the middle of the last decade not to develop embedded IFE for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 programmes effectively diminished the firm's role as a major IFE contender, leaving Panasonic and Thales as the primo players on the field. And in the world of PR, perception is everything.

Fast-forward to today, and Rockwell Collins is planning a sort of comeback, at least in the world of in-seat IFE for single-aisle aircraft. The company will formally unveil a new client-centric (read seat-centric) IFE system for single-aisle aircraft this fall at the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) expo in Seattle, after deciding a plan of action last year following market studies.

This roving reporter managed to catch a glimpse of the new Rockwell Collins system at the recent Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany. And here is what I can tell you.

Rockwell Collins sees its new, as-yet-unnamed seat-centric system as a continued maturation of its single-aisle product line, which today features the drop-down PAVES and digital dPAVES systems and now also boasts high-def quality. In essence, the company has opted to leverage the head-end to bring in an in-seat capability in order to offer a scalable solution to airlines.

All traditional entertainment content (videos, games, audio selections) is fully contained in each individual smart display, while live feeds such as moving map functionality or digital camera imagery, is handled by Rockwell Collins' traditional server. Content is background loaded through the head-end throughout the month. And it can be loaded in various ways - i.e. short content through USB, larger content through memory card approaches and large content through laptop applications, etc.

Unlike Panasonic and Thales, which have each based their next-generation IFE systems on the Android operating system, Rockwell Collins has selected an alternative OS that it sees as more reliable (hint, it's used in high-end automobiles). The seat-centric solution will be able to support connected apps. And the company envisions passengers being able to personalize their own content. It is also looking at different ways to enhance the personal device experience for passengers (i.e. providing content that is resident to the seat to various devices).

So how much will the system weigh and cost? Weight is expected to come in at south of 4lbs per seat all-in and Rockwell is targeting a 50%-70% reduction in costs from traditional single-aisle IFE.
 
As of a few weeks ago, Rockwell had not yet secured a customer for its new IFE system, but the company is working with a number of potential customers. In addition to providing the cabin management system for the Comac C919, Rockwell has garnered what is understood to be one of two selectable positions to provide IFE for the new narrowbody (Thales grabbed the other one, while Panasonic has been picked for in-flight connectivity).

Rockwell has also opened up dialog with, and is receiving a favorable response from, Airbus and Boeing regarding linefit offerabilty on their single-aisle aircraft. It is also talking to Bombardier for the CSeries and Embraer (for whatever Embraer ultimately decides in the air transport category) as well as pursuing retrofit opportunities.

So will Rockwell make the leap from single-aisle to twin-aisles with its new product? Not as yet. The firm is laser-focused on the single-aisle market, and views its new seat-centric solution as the natural step in the evolution of that product. However, it is studying the feasibility of enabling the system for existing customers of eTES and dTES.

Rockwell is going through the brand naming process right now. And is in the midst of a seat integration project with B/E Aerospace's Pinnacle seat (the result of which was on display at #AIX11 at the B/E stand). So we have yet another reason to look forward to APEX in September!

Check out the my colleague Will Horton's story on how "iPad as IFE" fan Jetstar is retrofitting with the B/E Aerospace Pinnacle seat and using the B/E iPad bracket (seen below). The fabulous nuggets one finds at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg. :-)

GuestLogix has teamed with Pokeware to offer airlines a way to generate new revenues by integrating video content and contextual advertising. Essentially, if you see something you like in a piece of video content, you can poke it to learn more about the product, and if you still like it you can buy it.

Key quote from Pokeware founder and CEO Maryse Thomas:

"Airline passengers can select anything of interest in the videos they watch, for example, information about an exotic location, jewelry, fashion, cosmetics, homewares or even music playing in the background of a particular video - the search and purchase possibilities are only limited by what is contained in the video.".

Read GuestLogix's entire statement here, but do check out this Bloomberg interview with Thomas, who discusses how Pokeware works. I'm sure there is plenty of work to be done yet (I wonder how content service providers, studios and in-flight entertainment manufacturers will react. I know the latter have been developing not dissimilar solutions, with Panasonic's neXperience (formerly known as FlightPath) coming immediately to mind).

 

Intelligent Avionics' claim that they can bring a super reliable, super lightweight PC to every seat recently prompted an industry observer to ask that I hold their feet to the fire for specifics, in essence turning RWG into a bit of a boxing ring. And you know I'm game for that.

Check out the following video taken by yours truly at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg and then read on for AURA vice-president Asia Pacific (and former Boeing Australia president) David Withers' response to our industry observer's questions.

 

Dear RWG (or is that now Ring Girl),
 
We are more than happy to rise to the challenge and climb into the ring - and not at all surprised to hear that our competitors are keen to learn more about AURA.

Whilst I'm not going to give away our intellectual property, I'm very happy to expand on our solution, particularly in the customers key areas of cost, weight and reliability.

Let's start with these crucial weight savings. You'll understand that we'll save the actual weight, power and cost numbers for our customers, but everyone can do the maths to quickly grasp why a system without servers, significantly reduced distribution hardware, and slimmed down in-seat weight is seen as advantageous by airlines. Aircraft flight manuals provide fuel burns figures for different weights so fuel savings are easily calculated, but remember that many airlines operate many sectors at max weights and will choose to increase their payload rather than take the fuel saving.  Either way, an investment in AURA can payback in a very short period of time.

As a guide the entire AURA system weight for a typical 300 seat economy deployment would is around 1.5kg per pax place - that's for everything - a full function IFE system including screens, mounts, cables, controllers, avionics, everything!

We are as driven about reliability as saving weight. For years now, avionics engineers have been building mission-critical systems with availability figures well in excess of the 99.999% we propose as standard. They are able to do so through the intelligent application of systems engineering disciplines. 

Recent changes in technology enable us to apply these disciplines to our architecture in a cost and weight effective manner to ensure that our reliability/maintainability and availability promises can be fulfilled. Of course components do fail over time, so AURA is designed to ensure the IFE experience isn't lost when they do. We achieve this through content storage at the seat, careful component and supplier selection, redundancy of system hardware, and easy inflight hot-swap of screen units.  Where the passenger experience, the sexy stuff, sells seats for airlines, it's ensuring the system doesn't fail which brings them back next time.

You are right that media loading is a major issue for airlines.  AURA offers a powerful yet simple content-management system using a single very large hot swap hard-drive at the cabin interface head-end, and large solid-state storage (0.5TB and up) in the seat.  It takes crew about a minute to exchange a secure content drive and start the process to seamlessly push the bulk content load to every seat. An aircraft-wide parallel load takes about 3mins/GB - and this can happen on turn around or in the background during flight. Daily or interim updates such as news or UI changes are easily managed via USB inputs or wireless groundlink.  AURA is highly secure and gained its first approval for early window content within six weeks of submitting technical papers to Hollywood.

Our other passion is to deliver a fantastic passenger experience. AURA provides the tools for airlines to completely customise their IFE system - first-run Hollywood content, gesture user interface, new apps, business productivity and travel tools, inflight shopping, meal and bar ordering, social networking and connectivity, and compatibility with carry-on smart devices. We are working closely with DELL and MICROSOFT to bring the reality of a PC-in-the-seat to air travellers very soon.

Will this satiate our observer, and will other industry players respond with their own stats?


 

UPDATED a second time to insert OnAir's role (and let's still call it an opinion piece):

Achieving linefit offerability for in-flight connectivity is tricky business, fraught with all sorts of challenges that would make your head spin. Thales is currently working towards achieving offerability for its Ka-band connectivity solution on the Airbus A350, and the company says it has secured an undisclosed customer for the offering, as well as for its Android-based AVANT in-flight entertainment (IFE) system. So kudos to Thales.

BUT, I'm now hearing that Qatar, while having selected Thales' AVANT IFE for its A350s (and 787s), is opting for Airbus' ALNA connectivity platform (with OnAir handling the GSM/Wi-Fi) instead of Thales' own GSM/Wi-Fi solution on the Airbus widebodies (contrary to my prior report that Thales had scored both!)

Initial A350 deliveries to Qatar will offer ALNA via Inmarsat SwiftBroadband until Ka is available (and that will occur when Inmarsat Global Xpress is available).

So, why this decision on the part of Qatar? Without the benefit of an interview with Al Baker (I must tap my colleague Max Kingsley-Jones for assistance there) I suppose there could be any number of reasons, but I'd imagine an Airbus-provided solution for an Airbus aircraft is going to be less expensive, don't you?

Airbus hasn't been totally blatant about its march towards becoming a major in-flight connectivity player (alright, it is in a JV with SITA for OnAir) but the airframer's role as a connectivity force to be reckoned with is becoming more defined as it flogs ALNA/OnAir (SBB initially, Ka later for mobile AND Wi-Fi) as an alternative to what is on offer from the IFE providers, Thales and Panasonic. Will this ultimately snatch the connectivity deals out of the hands of Thales and Panasonic, effectively relegating them to IFE providers on the A350?

Not so fast. Singapore Airlines will launch Panasonic's Android-based eX3 IFE system on its Airbus A350s and the firm's Ku-band eXConnect Internet solution. And, as mentioned above, Thales has secured an undisclosed customer for IFE and Ka on the A350. The two deals show that IFE manufacturers are still scoring connectivity business despite Airbus' ALNA proposition.

But, one wonders, is the time quickly approaching when airlines forgo IFE altogether and simply offer superfast Ka connectivity to passengers? And if so, doesn't Airbus seem to be, oh how shall I describe it, well positioned? I wonder if we'll see litigation in this particular sector yet.