direct TV
 

I just finished gluing EWR-MEX. going down, we had a brand new 737-800 without any audio or tv. Greatly disappointed---nothing on it. Coming back, had the drop down screens--no individual TVA, no direct tv. This is a 5.5 hour trip going down. That is a long trip without tv/audio. I was in first class both ways and not impressed at all. This was really first experience of CO elite first. pretty shoddy. I have three moreover national first trips on CO in the next four months, was this an abnormality in equipment?

Yes the 737 without DTV is an anomaly and it will be fixed at some point. Going back, was it a 757? None of those planes have DTV yet, but will eventually.

Some 738's still have the drop down screens.

Keep in mind, though, that if you had flown on an a/c with DirecTV , this would only have worked for the portion of the flight over U.S. territory, about half of that route.

You still, however, could have watched the programming that is stored on board (movies, TV series, etc.)

Both planes were 737-800's--one was older the other had the new sky interior--awesome, but disappointing to put a brand new plane into operation without Direct TV.

I had the same disapointing thing happen on SAN-EWR with a brand new 737-900. The GA announced it and recommended buying a book or magazine. After I got on the plane, I realized that the A/C power didn't work either which was a bigger issue for me as I had counted on having that.

I was also dismayed to see that the new overhead compartment spaces were smaller. If your bag doesn't fit in the bag sizer, it won't fit in the overhead. Perhaps they should start checking before letting people board. It's also angled upwards so for shorter people like me, it's hard to get anything in/out of it.

The case of the 739's is a little different than the 738's.

The 739's have no IFE or power because they were fitted with "temporary" interiors, after PMCO's seat vendor, Koito of Japan, was barred from supplying any more interiors by both the FAA and the EASA (the EU equivalent of the FAA), following a seat flammability document forgery scandal.

Interesting. The sockets were there for power and the FA thought it might be working but it wasn't. The GA said that the plane was supposed to have IFE but it hadn't been installed yet. So that was technically true; he didn't say how soon it would happen... I hope that temporary interior means that the overhead compartment space will be larger once everything is done

I'll have to make sure I don't book one again for now.

Update: I just looked at the CO website. it claims that 12/12 737-900's and 30/32 737-900ERs have Direct TV. If that is accurate, then I got one of the 2 ER's that didn't have it. Looks like I should try to book the 737-700 which is completely done. http://www.continental.com/CMS/en-US...eetStatus.aspx

The 738s with drop down screens are the ones with mid-cabin lav. Those are supposed to get the mid-cabin lav removed and DirecTV installed after the IFEless planes have DirecTV installed. In fact one of the IFELess 738s with the sky interior Aircraft #530 now has DirecTV installed, has been flying around for at least a month or so now.