Was sitting back a couple of days ago looking at the latest incarnation of the in-flight real-time map.

And I got to wondering, why is each generation of these progressively worse than the previous one ?

For those of us who remember the original Airshow, it was a great innovation. Some of the cities shown were a little bizarre but the display was well done and looked professional.

This was the high point. I can recall at least three generations of the map displays, each is worse than its predecessor. I am sure each was preceded by it's own sharp-suited sales team passing through Waterworld, whose presentations are long on Powerpoint and short on actual substance.

For example, the one I was looking at showed "Carlsbad" in the Czech Republic. This is presumably the town called Karlovy Vary for the last 65 years. A little later on we were crossing the "River Rhein". Why the German spelling, when the map is also showing Munich, not Munchen ?

But the actual names shown are a side issue. We now work through a range of scales, starting with one where the overlaid aircraft image is longer than our route points of Prague and London. Just to assist in understanding this representation of today's route, Reykjavik in Iceland and Alexandria in Egypt are helpfully plotted. Increasing scales show little more than a green mush for land, while at the largest the various estuaries in the Netherlands appear greatly distorted due to some "squared off" aspect of the graphics generation.

To be Hip and Cool, the end point cities now flash little rotating icons. But you can't really see what our route is in detail any more.

There is also now a bizarre "flight deck view" graphic, with the destination over the horizon, and a childish representation of the aircraft instuments under the window.

How do BA get sold such pap, when what they had previously worked better ?