One of the greatest developments in civil aviation for those of us who regularly fly long haul (1) is the personal in seat video system. It doesn't give you any extra leg room but it certainly helps to pass the time.
Singapore Airlines (2) has the best system I've seen. What I really like is that it provides video on demand. You press play and the channel you've selected simply starts. If you need to talk to the flight attendant or make a bathroom visit then you just press pause and come back to your movie when you're ready. It's like Tivo (3) in the sky!
Other airlines, including the one which provides the only direct service from LA to my former home city of Brisbane (Qantas), have chosen to install a less sophisticated solution that provides a choice of a dozen or so channels which all start simulatenously and run on a loop (generally 2.5 hours) throughout the flight. A couple of things really annoy me about this.
My first complaint is that they took so long to introduce this (although not as long as their US-based transpacific competitor United who I am sure will be out of business long before they introduce any improvements to their cabin environment) supposedly because they were waiting for the technology to mature so they could install the best solution available. At least that was their excuse a few years back when I told them they were being left behind. But of course they didn't, although they may have had a good business reason for the choice they made (presumably it costs less that the state of the art Singapore Airlines system - but probably not as much as you think).
The other problem with their system is simply the result of lousy design that would have cost nothing to do right. In my view, that's inexcusable. Here's the problem. You have no way of knowing when the movies will start. So what you would like to do is select the channel you want and simply wait until the movie starts. No such luck. The system stupidly responds with "the service is currently unavailable" and drops you back to the main menu. So you're stuck repeating this every minute or so hoping that you'll eventually catch the beginning of the movie. What's even more annoying than this idiotic design (which unfortunately would now cost money to fix) is that the flight attendants absolutely refuse to make an announcement when they are starting the movies which would cost them the grand total of Nothing. Zero. Zilch. I know this because I've asked several times (very politely of course) and always received a negative response.
(1) For my American friends who link LA to NY is long haul, I'm talking travel all day to get to LA and then take a 14 hour flight to Australia. I'm talking 8 hours from Australia to Singapore and then connect with a 13 hour flight to Europe. Oh, and it's just as far from Australia to US as it is from US to Australia. So stop talking about it. I know you'd all love to visit Australia because you keep telling me! So make like Nike and 'just do it'. We'd love to have you. Paul Hogan will even "throw another shrimp on the barbie" for you.
(2) If the guys running the US legacy carriers would like to know how to operate a profitable airline that provides pleasant, efficient and well priced air services to the traveling public, I suggest they take a look at Singapore Airlines which is, without a doubt, the best airline in the world (at least of the 40 or so I've experienced. Can't speak for Air Kazakstan, but my guess is it's about as good as a US legacy carrier).
(3) It really is as good as Tivo owners claim. No, it's better.
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