rkkwan

$8 is crazy, but CO probably made the correct initial choice. Yes, on my CO flights, portion of passengers paying for DirecTV is low, but no worse than people I see working on their computers on gogo flights I had on DL.

Personally, I've paid $4 for CO's DTV at least 4-5 times. gogo on DL or AA? 4-5 times, but all with various free coupons. I have never paid a dime for gogo, even for transcon, since I don't have power to run it for >3 hours anyways.

easte

They can offer DTV, WiFi and anything they want, but I still do not see why they have to force people to pay for basic entartainment on a 5-hr. flight, when there was in the past some free stuff. They can offer 2 thousands channels and premiere movies at whatever fee they want, let the rules of market decide what a reasonable price will be and what people will be willing to spend.
However, eliminating some basic service that was provided to everybody for free seems to me unreasonable, and even unfair, considering that there are travellers who do not have credit cards.

rkkwan

Too bad. That had already happened with meals, checked luggage, pillows and blankets. On basically all airlines.

channa

It's not about what used to be, it's about what the other guys do.

The others have free IFE. CO is still the only one that charges for it.

Steve M

I think this was one of the biggest mistakes CO made in the 2000's. I was at CO DO I when Larry Kellner announced the DTV deal, and the decision NOT to install WiFi, to those assembled. There were many groans in the audience as you might imagine. He asked for a show of hands of how many people brought their laptops with them on every trip. Maybe a third of the hands went up. But, that was a very self-selecting group of hard-core travelers and CO enthusiasts.

IIRC, Larry said that their research showed that only about 5% of the passengers regularly traveled with laptops. So, installing fleet-wide WiFi could benefit only 5% of the passengers at most, whereas DTV potentially hits 100% of the passengers. Not everyone with DTV in front of them is going to buy it, but the same is true with WiFi: not all of the laptop users will pay for it either. I was personally disappointed with it, partially that despite the market research numbers, I felt that that laptop users were among their core most-frequent, high-revenue passengers. But it was admittedly hard for me at the time to decide if that was really true, or if it was just convenient for me to believe that because it supported my own personal position of wanting WiFi.

Looking back on it today, it seems like a terrible decision. But as someone else pointed out, the environment has changed radically since that decision was made. Specifically:

- Many users have their own content on their laptops, now with the advent of iTunes making it easy to buy and/or rent digital movies and TV episodes. These laptop users are less likely to pay for DTV unless they want to watch live content.

- In addition to laptop users, many more users have iPhones, Androids, or iPads that they can pre-load with content and watch on board. These users are less likely to pay for DTV for the same reason as laptop users.

- Separate from video capabilities, all of those iPhones, Androids, and iPads have WiFi capabilities. Now, instead of 5% of the passengers having a WiFi device, it could easily be 25%. That makes a WiFi option many times more in demand than when the DTV/WiFi decision was made.

Although the long-term trends were there, I doubt that anyone could have predicted the scope, scale, and speed of the marketplace changes as a result of iTunes, iPhone, iPad, and competing devices/services.

Bushdog

Funny, literally last night I was telling my Wife what a good value the $4 has been, for the money. Clearly UACO heard me!At this point I'm flying more UA as I've actually had beter UDU luck and when I do not E+is a better perk than DirecTV and it is 'free' to boot.

njcommodore

anyone know if there is a CO Chase mastercard discount still??

gawhite411

What else could they have used? The 767 is a gas guzzler and they don't need the 777 for some of the routes they want. The 787 fills a perfect niche for CO. Do not suggest Airbus. If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going. I can only hope that over the long haul management of the combined carrier simplifies the fleet by replacing UA's airbus aircraft with planes from a proper American manufacturer.

nova08

The one thing that came with DTV that may not have necessarily came with WiFi are AC outlets. I know if I forget to charge my iPhone the night before and then I scroll through a ton of songs and play games I'm lucky to make it though the day. And even after turning the brightness all the way down on my laptop I'm lucky to make it on a 2-3 hour flight and that is without surfing the internet. It doesn't help that you have to hunt for AC outlets at airports.

Ysitincoach

Isn't it funny how they add AC power to DTV equipped aircraft, and that free AC power is what can help put the DTV out of business?

I think the power in every seat shows that they were committed to some WiFi product in the long term. They just haven't been in a rush to install it.

gawhite411

Just wait till they charge you for the activiation of in-seat power then go get TSA to ban battery power sources from carryons.

easte

Agreed, but it does not make it less unreasonable. And while the checked luggage fee is clearly perceived for what it is, a robbery, by any traveler, this is more subtle...

IAHMCI

It sounded like the discount was still available.

aacharya

In a business where a lot of my friends/family will book the cheapest flight on kayak, no matter the connection time or inconvenience, the airlines had to do this. Do I like it? No. But it's the fault of the leisure traveler. Noone else's.

Those of us on FT do not represent the normal flying public and we know better that it's worth paying for all of these items within the ticket.

tv_man

Pretty broad choice of words... in reality, the domestic market is:

UA/CO and Frontier charge for in-seat IFE

JetBlue, DL and VAM provide in-seat IFE for free

SWA, US and AA do not have in-seat IFE and/or do not offer IFE at all