New Flight Information Screens, Coming Soon to All AAirports
 

Just walked into DCA C Club to see this:

Bet the club is quiet today.

Just now it was totally dead. But evidently around 7:45-8:15am the lounge was hopping and the security line was half a block long. Bartender said he had poured 17 vodkas this morning before I arrived.

I doubt it’s coming soon to all airports as most airports control their own FIDS. Coming soon to most clubs is probably more accurate.

Anyways it uses the same design as their GIDS. I quite liked their old GIDS, as it showed more information about the destination (had an image of the city, local weather, etc).

Are the GIDS changing again?

It’s less information dense than the old screens were, but that might be okay because most people look on their phones.

It is easier to see a flights status now and the assigned gate, which is good. I wonder if they will show partner airline logos in airports with other flights (e.g. AS, BA, B6, JL).

Doesn't look bad for a smaller station like DCA but they're going to need to triple the number of monitors installed at big hubs to cover all the flights when each row is that high.

At least the rows are legible. The idiots who run the DFW airport changed the format of the airport-controlled screens that show all airlines and made the text for destination city smaller and harder to read while making the airline logo image more prominent. Of course this is the same airport board that wasted your PFC money by frivolously changing its logo and color scheme from blue to orange.

LOL-- for a minute I thought they were having the (totally true) flight information screen like they have at some airports in China where you walk up, it scans your face, and then shows you your flight and gate info along with a map and directions. Quite shocking the first time I saw it...

Hey, I'm just the messenger! (Zoom in under "Departures A-Z" and it says coming soon to "all"...)

But yeah somehow I doubt this will be fully ubiquitous

I agree. Too few items on a single page. They will need a lot of screens, or will have to limit the timeframe to the point where your flight may not show up. Also, the choice of colors is odd. Why is "Departed" green? If you're looking at your flight and it says "Departed" you're in trouble. They should make On Time green, delayed yellow (as they have), cancelled red, and maybe white for departed.

Departure time probably needs to be bold.

The more prominent and readable gate number is a plus.

A unfortunate trend that seems to be becoming more and more prevalent in other areas also (e.g. flight search results).

Or it could cycle through multiple pages. Pretty sure I've seen it set up this way in a few lounges already with the current display. Can be annoying having to wait for the screen to display your flight.

I don't like the new layout because the data are so spread out. I'd rather see MORE text/flights per line, so I don't need to stand there waiting for the screens to cycle to show more flights. (I don't care about seeing the AA eagle artwork on each flight line.)

On the topic of the website, I also wish there were a "power user" version that were not as "pretty" but displayed more data at once.

I literally have been sitting in the Phx Admirals club above the B gates years ago and learned a lesson that most you already know. If it is a holiday season travel period and bad weather with bunch of IROPS do not trust those displays and get your butt down to the physical gate to see what is actually happening.

Agreed. Based on a quick eyeball, looks like these screens show roughly half as many flights as they did before? :td:

All AA Airports? Are you sure? There are plenty of airports which seem to have different displays than the main AA Airports.

Agreed. And this likely will change soon after chaos ensues.

Reminds me of ESPN's new MNF design where they made the down and yard marker display yellow, which everyone is used to associating with a flag. :rolleyes:

Yep. Doesn't even have to be widespread irrops either. I've found AAs estimated departure time & status updates to be completely unreliable.

There have been times where I've sprinted to the gate at T-10 min coming from a late arriving connecting flight only to find everyone still sitting around and boarding not even started yet due to a not yet published delay.

Conversely, I've been in the lounge waiting to see the status change to "Now boarding" only to find, after asking the agent at T-20 min, that boarding had already started. :eek:

The AA design team should get a thumbs up for this new design. The data elements are the same across both designs. Count the data elements per row. The only thing missing (from this view at the DCA club) is the codeshare airline code and flight number e.g. AS1234, which very well could be planned for in the designs, but we have not seen that view.

If you are looking at a FIDS your goal is simple:

• Can I easily scan the information and locate my flight?
• Where is my flight departing from?
• What is the status?

From an information display perspective the design does a good job at achieving the goals.

It is true there are several usability and business issues that should be addressed/considered:

• Fix the underlying issue across all channels and platforms of inaccurate day-of-departure flight status information
• Reducing the number of rows per screen introduces usability issues because of the need to cycle through all the flights
• Reducing the number of rows per screen may lead to displaying a more narrow set of flights in the available screens
• Reducing the number of rows per screen may require additional monitors to display more available flights
• The status colors should be assessed again. But the design is suggesting the use of color for all things that are not “On time”, which is the right approach.

All things considered I give this 4.5 stars.

ETA: Does AA really need to display ALL those AA logos (Flight Symbols in AA speak)? A traveler is already in an AA branded Admirals Club and viewing a screen with the AA logo prominently displayed. There is no need to hammer people over the head with repeating non-value add information. It’s chart junk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartjunk

The rare time I even look at those screens anymore is if I'm a bit bored in the AC and want to see what flights AA cancelled that day.

No, but the screen on the right mimics the branding/design seen on the GIDS introduced when the new livery was announced.

The screens on the left mimic the current design of the GIDS that was introduced a couple of years ago.

It's there. But -yikes!- it's tiny. Look at the BOS and ORD flights.

You are right. I missed that data element was there. I’d be curious if they are scannable in actual implementation vs what we can interpret from the photo. From the photo, the codeshares are difficult to notice or read.

New Departure Monitors In Use at DCA, Soon to Be Everywhere
 

I saw this at the DCA AC last night and it states at the top it's coming soon to all airports.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Travel/Fl...IMG_8870-L.jpg

Personally I'm not a fan. Firstly because I don't think there's anything wrong with the current system but secondly because you have to wait for the pages to change. I know I can use my phone but when I'm carrying bags I like to just glance at the monitor for a last second gate check on the way out of the club so I'm not thrilled with this.

Don't you have to wait for the page to change on the current views too?

I'm not seeing the big change here, just a slightly newer format.

This is the 4th change in the last 7 years.

I don't understand why this is a priority when aa.com and the app functionality trail UA and DL.

Perhaps merge with the original thread on this: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...aairports.html

No real change in information displayed, but if this going network wide, the consistency might be a nice touch. Even though I use the AA app, I also find myself checking the boards when connecting or coming from the club and if the format were the same everywhere, the viewers eyes might more easily scan to the right place. I don't know how wide this could be deployed beyond hubs since usually the airport controls the monitors.

The occasional traveler probably doesn't use the AA app or even knows it exist. I might from time to time read a board out of boredom but it's useless if I want to know the status of the inbound a/c. It makes the board a bit easier to read and I assume that helps the increasing number of people that can't seem to find their seat on an airplane.

Those boards are the backup for the frequent or knowledgeable traveler and the primary for the infrequent or unknowledgeable. The next step being asking the random agent who is better occupied doing something that cannot be announced on a board or app.

The format is easier to read and sorting by destination lets people who have no idea what a flight number is find their flight quickly. The number of "page flips" will depend on the number of monitors for the specific location and the number of flights. For many places, a single monitor will cover 6-8 hours while it won't at DCA or a hub.

It's probably easier, so looks good on a corporate exec presentation... "Look at this project that we completed!"

Or AA is opening (more precisely, MWAA is opening for AA), a new 14-gate concourse which has no monitors and thus, it is the sensible place to start as there is nothing there to replace.

Supplementing the new concourse with AA branded monitors reinforces DCA's importance in the AA route map. DCA seems to be on border line between focus city and hub. If only a few more slots could be added to supplement the new gates :)

well the current view is a bank of monitors so A-Z departures and arrivals are listed next to each other.

They already have AA branded monitors elsewhere. The issue isn't the new monitors - it is why someone is spending money on yet another software update for screens when the underlying GDS and website and app are borderline unusable.

Knowing AA they'll use the IFE screens they ripped out of their planes and install them at airport terminals for gate information.

I was at the BOS AC last week and they had the new screens there in the club. I wonder whether they mean that these screens are coming to all Admirals Club locations, rather than literally to "all airports"...

They should turn those into video poker machines at the bar. I'd play.