APEX Editor's Blog

Picture this. You’re viewing content on a seat-back entertainment screen. A slick advertisement pops up for BMW’s latest luxury sport utility vehicle. You’re intrigued. The ad beckons you to upload your mobile telephone number so that a BMW representative can call you immediately and arrange for the car to be waiting for you at your [...]

Ready or not, Google Glass is here, and it represents what may be the next frontier of mobile computing. Passengers already have multiple screens to distract them while in-flight, from their smartphone, to their iPad, and now a screen literally in front of their eyes. Is the airline industry ready for this new generation of inflight [...]

There are plenty of tales lamenting the race to the bottom in amenities and service for passengers in the United States. But that is not the entire story. Indeed, there are some markets where competition amongst carriers is working to increase the options available to travellers. Not only are there more choices now in these [...]

These days it seems as if more and more airlines are opting to offer a 31in seat pitch in the economy class cabins of their long-haul aircraft (or perhaps worse still, ultra-skinny seat width). But don’t lump Oman Air into that bunch; the Muscat-based carrier’s Airbus A330s, which are configured 2-4-2 in economy, feature seats [...]

Once American and US Airways combine to produce the “new American”, inflight product is set to take on an unprecedented eminence as a distinguishing competitive factor among the country’s big three carriers. Current US Airways CEO and future chief of the merged American Doug Parker stressed the new paradigm during the recent Phoenix Sky Harbor [...]

It’s a generally held belief that the majority of airline passengers who are exposed to inflight entertainment view the moving map at some point during their flight, making it the most popular show in the air. “Evidence [shows] that passengers get a great deal of comfort out of knowing where they are,” Airborne Interactive CEO [...]

Companies that provide wireless and handheld IFE solutions and are looking to branch out and become content providers were visible at this week’s APEX TV Market conference, ALL3MEDIA International observed during the Lisbon event. The conference “was well attended”, says Kelly Shek, sales executive at ALL3MEDIA, an independent television programme distributor, but there was “a [...]

Wireless inflight entertainment systems brought a rupture to IFE hardware suppliers and are now jolting IFE content service providers, but the future affect on CSPs is unclear and debated by the industry. Global Eagle last November announced a deal to acquire Row 44 and Advanced Inflight Alliance (AIA), creating a company that sells both IFEC [...]

PHOENIX: Hawaiian Airlines has undertaken a study to determine what inflight entertainment solution it will offer on its ageing Boeing 767 widebodies. Even though the Honolulu-based carrier’s 767s are being replaced by new flagship A330 widebodies – which feature Panasonic Avionics’ eX2 inflight entertainment system – Hawaiian still intends to operate six to eight of [...]

Airlines that largely rely on slick advertising campaigns to convince travellers that their product is better than the next guy should prepare to up their game. The first and only travel site to rank billions of flights and connections worldwide based on what it calls “happiness factors” – such as seat size, entertainment, Wi-Fi, PED [...]