Switched and ready for
takeoff
From The Daily Telegraph
By Stephen Fenech
November 23, 2005
You’ve found your seat,
stowed your hand luggage, fastened your seat belt and watched the
safety video. You’re ready for take off. But now what is there
for you to do?
Even shorter flights have you
staring at the seat in front for more than an hour while longer flights
are even more boring. But Jetstar, Australia’s newest low-fare
airline, is now offering passengers video-on-demand service on selected
flights.
Passengers can hire a digEplayer
(pictured) to watch moves, TV shows, music videos, cartoons and comedies.
The portable device has an 18cm colour LCD screen and is a bit smaller
than a medium-thickness hardcover book. The unit has a hard drive
containing the entertainment content passengers can access through
a simple menu system on the home screen.
Qantas, on its domestic flights,
offers a shared LCD screen that flips down. But, in this case, passengers
have no control over what they watch.
The beauty of Jetstar’s
digEplayer system is that you can choose what to watch, when you feel
like it. If you start watching a movie and just can’t get into
it, you can stop it and choose another.
And just like your DVD player
at home, you can also put the system on pause if nature calls. Jetstar
project manager Ben Pfisterer says the digEplayer has been a popular
item on their flights.
“It’s going really
well, especially on the longer sectors,” he says. Hiring the
digEplayer costs $7 for flights up to 90 minutes long and $10 for
flights as long as three and a half hours.
“A lot of parents traveling
with kids say it’s the cheapest babysitter they’re going
to have,” Pfisterer says. Longer flights give passengers the
chance to watch an entire movie or a few TV shows.
Passengers on shorter flights
have been known to watch the first half of the film on the way to
their destination and the other half on the way home. There are a
number of portable entertainment products on the market but Pfisterer
says not may passengers carry them on board.
“I’m surprised at
the lack of portable devices people bring on board,” he says.
“They might have watched or listened to their contents or just
simply don’t want to travel with them.”
Pfisterer says Jetstar did look
at the option of making live TV available to their passengers.
He explains: “TV is a
bit of a hit or miss approach because you never know what’s
going to be one. A movie or TV show might have, already started by
the time you’re ready to watch,” he says.
Some of the films on offer using
the digEplayer are Mr and Mrs Smith, Harry Potter and the Prisoner
of Azkaban, Dark Water, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Herbie
Fully Loaded.
If passengers want to watch
TV shows they can choose from The Office, The Simpsons, Friends, Kath
and Kim, Scrubs, Arrested Development and Two and a Half Men. Music
videos include the latest from Coldplay, U2, Nelly and Joss Stone.
There are also hundreds of audio-only
tracks to choose from.
