Air NZ apologises for entertainment outage on 17hr flight but all planes might soon be screenless

Films, piano bars and magazines have been used to combat inflight ennui. Photo / Getty Images; CSA Images

Comment: How passengers got hooked on in-flight entertainment

Passengers were told to bring a book ahead of a 16.5 hour Air New Zealand flight from Chicago to Auckland on Friday. There was a rush for reading material after a “technical issue” took out the in-flight entertainment.

Travellers on NZ27 were offered $60 compensation in Airpoints and advice to go and pick up a couple of paperbacks for the flight.

The notice was sent with 90 minutes’ warning for passengers to raid Hudson Books at Chicago O’Hare Airport. It was a good day for Lee Child.

The airline advised passengers that they “may wish to bring [their] own reading material and/or a personal electronic device with downloaded content” for the flight.

As flights have become longer we have come to expect more from airlines in the pursuit of killing time.

Spending 17 hours, flying over night, through the middle of the Pacific, the miracle of flight grows old quickly.

Passengers aboard this weekend’s flight said they were driven “stir crazy”.

One said their “only entertainment was twiddling my thumbs as the WI-FI at ORD Airport was too slow to download any movies.”

But since when did we become so dependent on screens to combat the long-term ennui of flying long-haul?

Imperial Airlines was the first to entertain passengers with inflight films in 1925. Photo / Wikimedia Commons

It’s almost 100 years since the introduction of mid-flight movies. In 1925, Imperial Airways began screening silent films aboard their de Havilland DH 34, as passengers became restless en route from London to Paris.

Travellers spent the 2.5 hour flight in the wicker chairs of the 16-seater watching The Lost World. Since then airlines have tried many ways to sooth the passage of anxious or bored travellers. From music to projector movies, it’s all been used to combat midair boredom.

In 1971 American Airlines even introduced a Wurlitzer piano lounge at the back of their 747 jumbo jet cabins in economy. As part of a publicity stunt the carrier would invite musicians such as Frank Sinatra Junior to vamp up bored passengers. Sadly the skylounge fell silent, when the airline decided to fit 50 extra seats instead of the recreation area.

The first personal TV sets appeared in the 80s.

The American Airlines Wurlitzer piano bar was added to economy 747 cabins to amuse passengers. Photo / American Airlines archive, Supplied

Today, inflight entertainment has gone from a novelty to one of the most expensive parts of a plane.

Personal touch screens are ubiquitous on long-haul but few passengers know the price tag. Movies, games and even the tiny plane tracking your slow progress across the globe are all part of a highly complicated and costly entertainment package.

According to Thales - one of the world’s leading inflight entertainment system providers - it can cost upwards of $5 million a plane to equip with touch screens.

“Next to the engines, it’s the second most expensive item on an aircraft,” a spokesperson for the company told Digital Journal.

Screens for air cabins are extremely specialised especially in first or business class cabins.

According to aerospace design companies, the combination of few units and designing to high electrical safety standards required of planes makes the price per aircraft extremely high.

In a report by The Fast Company they revealed the surprising cost of TVs in air plane seats, “the rule of thumb is that every inch of screen will cost $1,000″.

That pokey, wee screen showing films that you will inevitably leave half-finished on landing probably costs around $10,000.

Inflight entertainment systems are one o the most expensive parts of an aircraft. Photo / Alevision Co, Unsplash

So, why are airlines willing to spend so much on keeping passengers amused? Unlike water or food, there is no requirement for airlines to provide entertainment on long-haul flights. Increasingly airlines are seeing entertainment as an unnecessary cost.

Some predict that the era of inflight entertainment may be over as passengers increasingly bring their own distractions.

In 2016 Aviation IT company SITA said that 46 per cent of passengers said they would watch a film on their own device versus 44 per cent who use inflight entertainment systems.

Flights are getting longer. Although a return flight on Air New Zealand’s new New York to Auckland route is long enough to finish War and Peace, passengers are likely to board a plane with more than a couple of airport paperbacks.

With the advent of inflight wi-fi, local video streaming and passengers carrying devices stuffed with podcasts and downloaded videos, it is expected that planes may eventually phase out the entertainment screens entirely.

Don’t forget to pack a book.