pilot007

Flew Lufthansa out to Germany for the weekend, and came back on BA.

LH had nice maps in their in-flight magazine, but what has happened to BA?

The old maps in High Life were already pretty bad, low-resolution and pixelated at the edges, but now the new maps are completely useless. As someone with an interest in travel and geography, I find them to be a disgrace. There's nothing to look at any more, just a few dots and names of places they fly to.

I always enjoy flipping over the in-flight magazine map on my voyages, and then letting my imagination run wild as I picture the many small towns, rivers, and interesting geographic features. It's a shame BA have decided to dumb down their magazine even more.

Lufthansa's in-flight magazine seems to assume a much more intelligent reader, with good maps and interesting articles on aviation: aircraft construction, maintenance, and even logistics. I might be flying LH more if I can...

Stez

While I agree with your sentiments about the Highlife maps, is it really going to make you switch airlines on that criteria alone?

pilot007

Of course not, and didn't mean to imply that. Other aspects of the LH service were very good as well. But BA seem to be doing many steps to make their passengers more happy, so I wonder why they can't just sort out some better quality maps for those of us who care.

Globalist

How good to the maps need to be? I assume they are not using them up front to navigate?



Globalist

Hoch

I personally have not noticed a difference over the years. Mind, I only look at the maps if I am exceptionally bored :-)

H

windowontheAside

I agree with you. I occasionally like to look at the maps and pore over where I've been, where I haven't and where I'd like to go to.

It seems unnecessary simplification to reduce the maps to landmasses and dots.

pilot007

Here you go, something pretty to look at. Maybe it's just me, but I like to use my imagination and can stare at maps for hours on end.

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Lufthansa-Air...)cr+Nw~~_3.JPG

ACARS

Could not agree more. Clearly graphics designers do not have a clue about geography. I really liked the old old high life and DAN-AIR maps. Not only were key cities, rivers and boarders annotated, but the route lines followed the approximate tacks of the most used airways on that route. Clearly Highlife believes the average BA passenger has a low curiosity/intellect.

Pargeo

Tbh I'd like more detailed maps on HighLife Magazine, although this is obviously not a key argument when I choose what airline to use.
Speaking about the maps, the December issue of HLM has, well, some errors in its maps, namely, Bologna is not shown as BA destination at all, despite the fact BA has been flying there for ages. I dunno whether this is important to a frequent flyer like me (I know perfectly well where I can fly with BA and where not), but it could be important for some occasional travellers.

will2288

^

I love when airlines show the routes they fly on the map.

PUCCI GALORE

Personally I think that the whole of High Life is a waste of space and weight. I would love them to calculate how much it costs in fuel to haul this rubbish around the sky every year.

I suspect that it could be put to good use in some "kludgie" as HIDDY would call such places in some part of the world where multicoloured paper would he regarded as the height of opulence. There and only there would it have some useful purpose though I for one would be wary of using it. The print might come off and my husband might think that I had some unspeakable disease.

windowontheAside

At a slight tangent, has anyone noticed that the inflight moving map shows Stansted as being south of the Thames, somewhere in Kent? What's that about?

Stez

It refers to Stansted village in Kent.

Rather unfortunate choice to use for a location name.

mzb00

It unhelpfully shows the location of Stansted, Kent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stansted,_Kent)

windowontheAside

Aahhh - thanks for solving that one. Obvious really but how confusing is that? Wonder why someone decided to pick that village out of the myriad of others that could have been chosen?

And who (apart from residents and neighours of Stansted, Kent) would find that a helpful beacon on a moving map anyway?