US Airways to Cut In-Flight Movies
Thursday July 10, 2008
In yet another fuel-saving measure, US Airways announced yesterday that it plans to remove its entertainment systems from domestic flights. According to FOXNews.com, beginning in November, the airline will no longer offer movies on domestic flights, except for flights to Hawaii.
Perhaps we'll see a jump in purchases of portable DVD players and laptop batteries.
Photo © Alex Parode
Comments
Not a fuel-saving measure exactly, more a let’s-remove-any-and-all-amenities measure and make flying as inconvenient and dreary as possible.
I started carrying my iPod a few years back. I would just as soon listen to my music as watch a movie anyway. I am always afraid it will be a tearjerker and I will embarrass myself by tearing up!
I believe that this is all part of a sinister plot cooked up by books (and in some cases, cook books) to destroy our electronic culture and promote themselves as the superior form of media.
Viva la Libro!
I subscribe to Smithsonian for the express purpose of reading them in flight. I stockpile them and pack 2-5 of them depending on the length of trip.
The problem with inflight movies for me has been that the earphones might not work well or the screen won’t be positioned where I can see it easily. I’d rather download a movie to my video iPod, or read.
The sound is often really bad on those in-flight movies anyway, but really, it would be nice if they would try to improve the service they offer rather than downgrading it. Oh sorry, I guess I forgot we were talking about airlines.
I can’t think of this as a huge loss 1) I don’t fly much 2) The last time I flew happened to be international and got 18 hrs of some awful movie about robitic genetically engineered sharks rotated in a loop with an awful Steve Martin comedy. I never even put on the sound, but saw the same scene repeat over and over and over and over…
I’ve never been able to watch the in-flight movies anyway because I always seem to get motion sickness. I’ve started just bringing my iPod stocked with movies, music and audiobooks to pass the time.
Don’t you think it could be that they’re going to replace the movies with those portable player systems? I bet they could get enough systems for the average number that use them on a flight and that would weigh less than the built-in system.
Plus, those systems offer more variety for the individual users.
Jennifer,
US Airways’ spokesman said that the airline was looking into seat-back entertainment systems but that “a new entertainment system is a long way off,” according to FOXNews.com’s reporter. It doesn’t sound as though customer satisfaction is their top priority here.
I’m not a big inflight movie watcher either, but it doesn’t seem to be a huge money-saving move. I wonder if the maintenance of them is costly. I can imagine it’s an administrative nightmare. That’s probably where the cost savings comes in.
Gosh, first the in-flight meals, and now the movies…. what’s next?
Hmm, first meals, then movies, maybe they’ll pull out the seats next and just give us those hang-on straps like they have in the subways! Think of how many more people they could squeeze onto a plane.
Well, seeing as the in-flight movies were never that great, I won’t miss them that much. But I do agree that this seems pretty petty!
In last night’s US airing of Doctor Who, the good doctor used his sonic screw driver to get rid of all the cacophonous in-flight entertainment. The people stuck together in the cabin for 4 hours struck up conversations instead.
Gee, thanks for the spoiler N.S. I don’t get cable or satellite. I have to wait for series 4 to come out on DVD.
As for in-flight movies or lack thereof, people need to ride trains more anyway.
Gosh, I’d take the train in a heartbeat, if only it weren’t so expensive. Oh yeah, right… airfare isn’t that cheap either these days.