Originally Posted by
REPUBLIC757
IFE strategy
The answer that Mark gave you is a risky business decision, "expect some form of IFE." Awareness is key and this is a straight up lazy approach. Whatever happened to the CO strategy of consistentcy? If anything this is the complete opposite. A 739 may or may not have DTV. An A320 may or may not have working wifi. An 319 may or may not have wifi and overhead entertainment. You're 777 to hawaii may or may not have CRTs but if they don't expect streaming entertainment with broken powerports. Jeez, get it together. People hate this kind of crap.
This is a tough one. I, along with most get frustrated with the inconsistency, but we are not long into a merger proper. There are roughly 700 aircraft, and each of types started the merger with a different onboard product. It takes time to:
1. Decide what works best
2. Decide what the evolution of the products are and what will be wanted by the time you get it certified and installed.
What is good for today, may be much different than what is needed a year from now
3. Decide what's needed / wanted
4. Certify and install
The UA planes domestic aircraft had almost nothing on them at all. Just overhead screens on almost everything except for PS (despite this, many on here seem to proclaim that UA was industry leading until the merger). The Continental planes domestically have Direct TV on the majority of the 737 series, and overheads on the 757 series. Internationally, every Continental plane had seat back tv, where as the UA aircraft didn't except for a few types.
It's quite possible that in a year or two, EVERYONE will have portable devices that can receive streaming, and with the ability to have live tv etc, streaming may seem like a great option then.
My guess is that 2 years from now, there will be a lot more consistency in the product. Unless you are getting 700 planes delivered at once, you are never going to have consistency across the fleet.