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of Business Development – Europe/ Africa, highlighted some of the key features of the system to FTE. IntelliCabin has now achieved allimportant Supplemental Type Certification and the solution will now be rolled out across the rest of the Vistara fleet. The first installation, he said, was completed in three overnight shifts with no interruption to service. While IntelliCabin enables airlines to stream content to “an incredible number of different devices”, a partnership with Samsung also allows carriers to offer IFE content, including Early Window Content, on customised Samsung tablets, which can be distributed to passengers for the duration of the flight. Echoing the thoughts of other providers in this space, Childs told FTE: “Airline interest is really high. " He added: “Our top-end relationship with Samsung is paramount for us and it’s also really important that we can stream to every type of device."
Agnostic approach After recently landing a contract to introduce its wireless IFE solution on Tigerair Australia’s Boeing 737-800-operated services from Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth to Bali, the Arconics team welcomed FTE on to their booth in Hamburg. Michael Reilly, the company’s VP e-Enablement & Entertainment, explained that the company’s “hardware agnostic” stance to IFE stands it in good stead. An increasing number of airlines are now willing to “test the water” he said, with a vast array of solutions, from full blown wireless IFE systems to portable products, providing a great deal of choice to all airline types. The associated ancillary revenue benefits – the ability to market and sell products and services via wireless and portable IFE systems – are an important element of the offer to airlines, he said. This point, he suggested, will contribute to a “real shift to wireless IFE in the next two, three or four years”, although he accepted that embedded
IFE systems will “always have a place in premium classes on widebodies”. ‘Exciting times for wireless IFE’ In the wireless IFE space competition is fierce and another of the many players in this space is Bluebox Avionics. Speaking to FTE, Kevin Clark, Chief Operating Officer at Bluebox, explained that the company offers a solution for all needs, ranging from standalone portable IFE and connected portable IFE, to fitted wireless IFE and a scalable wireless IFE product. Each of the Bluebox solutions has its own unique merits, he explained, from the Early Window Content available on the iPad-based Bluebox Ai solution, to the swappable battery and 800GB data capacity on the Bluebox Wow portable product. “We’re in a really exciting phase and there’s a lot of interest in wireless IFE and portable IFE,” Clark stated. (Source: http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/ By Ryan Ghee)
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