IFE no longer allows skipping of advertisements
 

I am posting from AC1192 on a A319. My apologies if others have already posted about this development.

I poked around at the IFE and noticed some new content, so I decided to watch it.

Upon starting the show I was informed with an onscreen message that there would be 90 seconds of advertisements prior to my entertainment beginning. I attempted to fast forward, as usual. The touch screen was completely locked out. Absolutely no response, so no ability to even adjust the volume which is often cranked because of AC's crappy headphones.

Interesting development.

IFE no longer allows skipping of advertisements
 

I'm on my second flight of the day and noticed the exact same thing.

Price to pay for free TV and movies?

They're not "free". I pay a lot of money to sit in that seat and watch TV.

Fly Westjet and you will get a different answer.

Free is a relative term. When I'm sitting in the J cabin like I am now does that mean that I'm also getting "free" food and drinks? Maybe I should sit through some commercials for the catering company, or the vinyards?

I was thinking of Y.

Had my 1st IFE equipped flight in a long time last Sunday and was also puzzled by the '90 second' comment prior to many minutes of unskippable advertisements.

On the return flight paid closer attention to the wording and realized that the movie did not take 90 seconds to start after the advertisements, it was almost instanteous.

This would seriously piss me off if spread across the fleet and particularly J.

I have no problem with this in Y, given the economics. But in J this would be absolutely despicable.

Yet another reason to bring my own entertainment.

I'm sitting in J...

Well, we all know Y is basically provided by airlines as a form of charity and the only alternative to the always decreasing quality of the Y product is for AC to go belly up.

I mean, Y customers should just be happy that the Y cabin even exists at all, since the only reason it even breaks even is because of IFE ads and baggage fees, right?

Remember, people who buy Tango fares are responsible for their own misery, and it's their fault that the airline's only other offering for a superior hard product is 5-10x the cost, but a $1000 P fare to JNB is for smart and savvy people.

:rolleyes:

I was actually going to say almost the exact same thing, but thought talking about booze ads would be a little weird.

I'm glad you said it :)

Because I agree. 100%.

Nothing is free. Its included.

Your ticket/seat includes IFE with commercials. That is what you paid for. No where did it say you purchased a seat with commercial free IFE.

You're right, they are not free, the cost of the IFE content is partially offset by the advertisements and sponsor messages that are (supposed to be fully) played after the safety demonstration.

You pay "a lot" (relative term) of money to sit in that seat and be flown from point A to point B.

There's really quite a simple solution to this dilemma here, AC just needs to implement the usage payment feature. That way you can pay $5 less for your ticket and pay $20 (or whatever it ends up working out to) more for use of the entertainment system.

[jk - sort of]
Personally, I'm getting sick and tired of subsidizing the use of the IFE for everyone else that uses it!!

Come on Air Canada, implement pay-as-you-go (even for J eUps) for the IFE, I want my $5 cheaper ticket!!
[/jk - sort of]