Tag Archives for inflight entertainment.
Airlines pushed passengers into a bring-your-own-screen world—then cut back the built-in hardware that makes watching comfortable. With laptops barely usable in many seats, travelers are inventing their own ergonomics: seat pockets, airsickness bags, Ziplocs, even hats turned into phone mounts. Here are the best (and worst) DIY setups—and what they say about economy flying today.
I cried harder at an onboard movie in Cathay Pacific first class than at almost anything outside losing family, and there is a reason that happens in the air. Flying quietly strips away your defenses, and ordinary films and memories suddenly hit like a gut punch. Let’s break down why.
Some airlines provide passengers with seatback entertainment screens. Others expect you to use your own devices. But when you’re in close proximity to other passengers, how you entertain yourself to pass the time on the flight isn’t only your personal business.
American Airlines has announced a fix for one of the biggest pet peeves among their first and business class passengers. They’re moving away from flight attendants collecting headsets from passengers, up to an hour prior to landing. No more interrupting sleep, no more ending inflight entertainment early.
Cathay Pacific finds itself managing a crisis because their inflight entertainment system provided access to an episode of The Family Guy.
Cathay apologizes, blames a third party that handles their inflight content, and promises that they’ve provided proper “instructions to ensure that the recommended content meets” State Party censor demands “our company standards.”
A woman settled into her flight back to Australia by watching Magic Mike where Channing Tatum is a male stripper and he’s apparently got some steamy dancing with Salma Hayek. The woman looked around before selecting it on her seat back screen, says that there were no “kids around” but she attracted attention anyway.
American Airlines rolled out live TV three years ago but it was cut at the start of the pandemic. They explained it away as there being no live sports on offer, but of course channels included news and entertainment too.
Starting tomorrow live TV is back on domestic narrowbody aircraft.
After years of cost cuts, one of the airline’s labor leaders has had enough. On July 2, the President of the flight attendants’ union Los Angeles crew base wrote an email to CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom that’s going viral within the company.
On this delayed flight to Phoenix someone was airdropping porn from their iPhone. A flight attendant made an announcement telling parents to make sure kids with iphones have their bluetooth turned off, and that their setting won’t allow receiving files from people not on their contact list.
Airlines have delay codes for weather, mechanical, crew availability and a host of other reasons. This may be the first flight, however, that was delayed by porn.
What movies are ok to watch on a plane and which ones aren’t? The National Center on Sexual Exploitation says that United is training flight attendants to draw a line, and training them to intervene when the line is crossed.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
