Meanwhile Ryanair will charge £20 for the use of an Etch a Sketch that you have to return at the end of the flight.
Qantas to provide wireless iPad entertainment on 767s
Australia's premier airline, Qantas, will provide an iPad to each and every passenger on its fleet of Boeing 767s, beaming free in-flight entertainment using what it dubs its "QStreaming" technology. "Following the successful trial of our QStreaming service this year," Qantas Domestic CEO Lyell Strambi said in a statement, "we …
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Sunday 22nd July 2012 04:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Fancy IFE or not...
Wtf? Qantas are a joke. Lazy, complacent, rude staff, old & crap planes, poor reliability, overcrowded lounges, shit food in lounges, frequent flyer programs that are frankly not worth joining etc etc
The op was correct. I avoid Qantas like the plague. Virgin may be brash and cheap but at least they are honest and care about customer satisfaction.
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Wednesday 25th July 2012 22:01 GMT Philip Lewis
Re: Fancy IFE or not...
Well, having passed the 2 million air mile mark many years ago, and as one currently working in the airline industry, I adjudge my personal opinion as having merit based on wide experience and knowledge.
If you think QANTAS is so horribly bad, it merely shows how little time you spend in commercial aircraft. This is not to say that QANTAS is objectively the world's best airline, or the worst.
However my millions of commercial air miles suggests you are wrong. Though it is a year or two since I flew QANTAS last, they certainly do not rank on the bottom of the scale.
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Sunday 22nd July 2012 05:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
re: Man, you mustn't travel very often
Man, you mustn't travel very often
At the risk of sounding like the song "I've been everywhere", I've done several decades of organising temporary and permanent multimedia installations for companies around the globe. The last time I counted I had been to over 60 countries on five continents. One example: I did a six year contract with one of the world's leading airlines that meant I traveled quite a bit with them. I also fly between Aus and the UK regularly for non-biz reasons. I can fill an extended 48 page, 10 year UK passport before it expires. I guess that means I know nothing about air travel.
And Qantas really are crap.
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Saturday 21st July 2012 08:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Feedback from the trial led Qantas to develop a stand that allows the iPad to be set upright on the seat-back tray or secured to the back of the seat when passengers need their hands free, such as during meal times."
Via http://australianaviation.com.au/2012/07/qantas-moves-ahead-with-ipad-ife/
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Saturday 21st July 2012 12:57 GMT Droid on Droid
Re: what a great idea
$500 a seat which works out at probably $1 a flight for the first year. But you forget the apps and Apples licensing policy. They could spend $10k per year to add 100 apps per plane. I expect this to catch on in the airline industry, everyone knows Apple has the means and desire to support the iPad which in the enterprise is more important than technology. That $100 billion in the bank is a massive mindfuck saying "you probably won't get fired choosing the iPad or iPhone"
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Saturday 21st July 2012 10:56 GMT Michael Jennings
The interesting part of this story is that Qantas' 767s are *old*. (We are talking more than 20 years, and in some cases quite a bit more than 20 years). They weren't fitted with entertainment systems when new, and it would cost a lot to retrofit them now in order to provide the wiring, power etc for modern aircraft entertainment systems, particularly given that the aircraft are probably only going to be in the fleet for a few more years. So providing passengers with iPads is a stopgap solution, as the iPads are light, relatively inexpensive, and have little in the way of wiring or power requirements. It's quite clever.
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Saturday 21st July 2012 13:12 GMT Droid on Droid
That's what I thought, add that it's Wifi and it seems a cheap and easy way to do what used to cost 10K plus per seat. Maintenance is chuck it in the bin or get a special apple-care deal. What I'm wondering about is recharging, I would assume Qantas needs 1 recharging for every 2-3 in use. They should have some good numbers for Apples real life battery technology.
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Sunday 22nd July 2012 10:08 GMT mathew42
A big advantage I can see for this is maintenance. Currently with back of seat entertainment systems if yours is broken your are bored for the flight. If the games don't work for the kid sitting next to you then it's torture.
With this system, the flight attendant simply replaces the iPad. Keep 10 spare on the plane and everyone is happy.
I agree that in seat charging is mandatory, which opens up interesting opportunities to recharge other devices in-flight.
At least security has a high enough profile these days that the network will be separate from the flight control systems. However, I wonder about pilots playing games in flight while the auto pilot is engaged and being slightly distracted :).
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Wednesday 25th July 2012 22:08 GMT Philip Lewis
Re: QANTAS.
QANTAS has crashed and people died in the crash. The flight was a postal flight IIRC, about 90 years ago (I cannot be bothered to look it up).
QANTAS has never lost a paying passenger. Which for an airline that apparently has at least 1 disaffected customer who frequents this website, that is not so bad.
Disclaimer: QANTAS does not service the routes I commute on, so I don't fly with them so often.
Paris: Inflight blondes again?