While most airlines participate on Twitter and Facebook, this post specifically refers to digital media on aircrafts and related new revenue streams.
Today, airlines fly long distances. The longest flight is nearly 19 hours long (from New York to Singapore). I recently flew between New York and Hong Kong, a 16 hour flight on Cathay Pacific. While the airline does have an advanced in-flight entertainment system, there are quite a few problems:
- The speed of the system is extremely slow.
- There are numerous bugs in the system that make it crash.
- You’re limited to media that is selected by the airline.
- Inability to shop on board.
Most of the above factors are small problems, but huge opportunities exist for each one of them. For example, if Microsoft started a partnership with the airlines and introduced it’s Zune Marketplace on board the aircraft, they could sell songs, movies, etc. The same applies to iTunes. Here’s a scenario:
- User is unsatisified with the free selection of movies.
- User wants to view more movies on board the aircraft and browses the ‘Store.’
- User purchases movie.
- At the end of the flight, user is given a thumb-drive and/or DVD with purchased media.
There are certain technical and licensing challenges that will have to be overcome, but every media outlet could have the ability to display their content to millions of more people. The same applies to each of the above factors — nearly every airline has an in-flight shopping catalog. Why not allow people to purchase items from the catalog and deliver it to their seat or ship it to them at home? The opportunities are plenty and airlines should start investing in such initiatives.
