Jamoldo,

I'm with you on this. I expect my ticket price to include any meals, so being asked to pay extra is taking liberties. It strikes me that the US carriers are increasingly acting like LCC's (paying for alcohol, IFE), but at not the low price. Do they want to drive people onto the LCC's?

But just as a note - not all major airlines charge for IFE - it's virtually unknown outside the US (well, except on charter flights).