IN-FLIGHT MOJO

About a decade ago, when the first In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) systems started to be installed onboard aircraft, some people thought that they were a waste of money. Now, if you fly abroad on any airline, or even domestically on select Kingfisher, Jet, and Air India flights, you end up staring at a screen. The temptation exists for some people to switch the screen off and catch a bit of sleep, but in-flight systems have come a long way since the early days.

On-demand
Pretty much all international carriers offer “on-demand” systems. Based on the ones that I have experienced, the most advanced system in the air undoubtedly belongs to the Emirates airline. The Emirates’ “ICE” system has a movie and television library that supports 1,600 different pieces of content. And it is so advanced that if all 400 people onboard an Airbus A380 wanted to watch the same movie at the same time, the servers will not crash.

‘On-Demand’ means that you can watch a movie or listen to music whenever you want rather than watch a show broadcast at certain times. Most airlines’ economy class seats have smallish seven-inch screens, but some airlines, including Air India, have put in 10-inch screens on their latest aircraft. Most of these screens are touch creen-capable so you don’t need to fidget searching for a remote.

Playlists
Most IFE systems have hundreds of music albums—there are usually far too many songs to listen to backto-back. If you want to create your own playlist from those albums, it is fairly easy to do so. If you want to watch the aircraft move across the moving map display as towns and cities pass beneath you with music in your ears, you can leave the iPod in the hand-luggage.

Live TV
This is still a new innovation and is available on very few airlines, including some Kingfisher Airlines aircraft. This means that TV channels are beamed live to the aircraft, so the two hours that you spend at 35,000 feet between Delhi and Bangalore does not have to be two hours minus the news.

Text Messaging
You can send a text message (SMS) from your seat on some international carriers to any number on earth, as long as they can receive a text message. This is not a free service, though, and prices vary between $2-$10 (Rs 96-480) a message. Not cheap, but if you had one last goodbye to send, or just want to surprise someone, this is a rather nifty way of doing so.