It’s time for airlines to sit up and listen to their passengers when it comes to wireless entertainment, according to a recent global survey of 700 regular travelers by PaxLife, a provider of wireless IFE (see below).
When asked in a situation where pricing/schedule/airport/route were similar, whether passengers would choose one airline over another if they could access content on their personal device on one and not the other, only 12% said this would not be a consideration.
Despite this, of that same set of passengers only 17% could name an airline that they thought provided great wireless IFE. And of those that had tried inflight wi-fi (34%), more than half claimed the service was ‘average’ or worse.
It is no secret that in this day and age passengers crave to be entertained onboard aircraft in the same way as they are on the ground, streaming video to their personal devices. But right now the high speed connectivity option is simply not viable, due to cost and bandwidth issues.
What we are finding is that people love their devices and want access to high-quality inflight entertainment, especially on flights with no seatback entertainment. 82% of passengers said their journey would be significantly improved with wireless IFE onboard. That’s why our focus is on delivering a great wireless IFE product for consumers, that offers great ancillary revenue streams for airlines, and an optional connectivity bolt on to meet passengers’ growing social-media needs.
Gerald Schreiber is CEO of PaxLife, a provider of wireless IFE, based in Berlin, Germany
