On 1st June, a South African travel trade site published this story:
South African Airways is looking at reconfiguring the in-flight entertainment boxes found under every second seat in economy class in its new Airbus to allow more legroom, according to a spokesman, who added that SAA would further investigate complaints by customers regarding the seat pitch in the economy class cabin in the new Airbus.
Those boxes are indeed annoying... and this change is very welcome since JNB-Europe and certainly JNB-US is quite a long flight to be in cramped conditions...
Nowmedia, a South African newsletter for the travel trade, recently announced that SAA admits there is a problem with the inflight boxes:
SAA improves Airbus economy class (19th May 2005)
SAA WILL begin reconfiguring its A340-600 and A340-300e aircraft from this month, starting with the first aircraft on May 20. The reconfiguration is aimed at improving the comfort in the economy class cabin by increasing the seat pitch, putting the bulky in-flight entertainment boxes under the floor and changing the angle of the in-flight screens to improve the passengers’ view of the screens. The reconfiguration will take place during the aircrafts’ usual maintenance service.
I don't understand why the IFE boxes need to be so bulky, the required electronics are simple and compact enough to fit into a very small package, possibly even behind, or even as part of the screen.
Yes, but the IFE boxes also start getting warm after some time ...
That is why they are larger than they need to be, because they also contain some cooling fins. The problem with those IFE boxes is that sometimes also the passengers hit it with their feet and sometimes even keep hitting it untill it brakes off the underside of the chair.
A centrally located system for the IFE would indeed be a great improvement !
Interesting subject indeed.
During a BA flight Heatrow- Johannesburg, it was acceptable cramped in economy. But on the return flight, I had such a box next to my feet. I could not move my feet at all, I had to stay the entire 10 hours in exactly the same position.
So yes, indeed, this "small" box makes the big difference.
Talking now about confort items around passengers seats, I saw the Il-86 and Il-96 have in economy a small air exhaust/fan in the seat in front of them. The tube comes from under the seat. (they also have the toilets at the back in the "basement"!)
To my little knowledge I have never understood why these inflight entertainment systems must be made by individual boxes. Today with strong and compact computers, it should be possible to work with a central mainframe and all the screnes working wireless. Saving weight by the way. A380 engineers, you are reading?
Although I doubt wireless would be a good idea, getting the entertainement system more centralised or the boxes smaller should technologically be feasible.
However, I feel that one of the major issues might be just "certification". Even if nowadays technology permits the creation of a more centralised entertainement system (or a decentralised but using new technology with smaller boxes), the whole thing must be certified, which might take some time.
The fact the in-flight entertainement system is considered as an integral part of the airplane is probably a good thing. Wasn't fire in the entertainement system (one of) the reasons that Swissair flight went down a few years ago above the Atlantic?
Drawbacks of going wireless:
-energy consuming
-intereference possible with controls
-providing a wireless connection to 320 seats demands quite a powerfull controller
-you should almost need a network administrator onboard for in case of a failure: 1 failure in the central system and no one would have entartainment anymore.
Lyulka wrote:Drawbacks of going wireless:
-energy consuming
-intereference possible with controls
-providing a wireless connection to 320 seats demands quite a powerfull controller
-you should almost need a network administrator onboard for in case of a failure: 1 failure in the central system and no one would have entartainment anymore.
Not sure it would be 'more' energy consuming than the bulky boxes we have now? Can you explain?
Interference is unlikely if the system is thoroughly tested - remember they said that about mobile phones to and that was proved to be not true. Also - I assume the Connexxion system of Wifi on board doesn;t interfere?
You would need a reasonably powerful server on board I guess- but they don;t take up much space these days.
Finally - you wouldn;t need an administrator on board - these things can be operated and repaired remotely if configured properly. ie. From home base. Would you have an oven repair man on board incase one of the planes oven breaks? Nope - why should this be any different?
Jense, I think that such problems are only revealed if a test flight would not only be done by 6 flight engineers in the cockpit, but also if the whole Y-compartment is full, f.e. with 250 Airbus employees. Put them on a 11 hour flight. Each a neighbor left, neighbor right. No empty seats thus. And someone in front who reclines his/her seat from take off till landing.
If you sit like that for 10 minutes, you think "what's this stupid box?". If you sit there for 10 hours, that IFE is your onboard enemy.
just want to add the wireless data transfer will consume always more energy than wireline based tranmission if you compare with the same bitrate. It is because the noise in the air is much higher than the noise in the cable. Thus you will need more energy to transmit the same amount of data (to achieve the same signal to noise ratio)
moreover, wireless technology does not result in an advantage because the seats are fixed anyway and the in-seat displays need at least the power cable. And then ... I dont like to have 10 access points each sending with 100 mwatts in the airplane I am in because of transmitting entertainment data.
I think that the boxes issue is as result from a long development cycle. expect 2 or more years of development and certification (bad thing if this box would start to burn because the aircon brakes down in summer like what's statler wrote already). And then one year in front of that to find out what the customers want. So if this system was installed three years ago it is likely that its technology inside is older than 5 years. Also ... there is nothing to compare with media-equipment you can by in some electronis stores today. How many Inflight Entertainment Systems were installed at Airbus per year in Economy Class? 10.000? so I think these systems are pretty much custom designs/installations and thus they tend to be bigger than a sony playstation.
Andries 
