In the News: “IFEC Variety Shows its Inflight Value” – Aviation Week Network

Bernie Baldwin examines IFEC on crossover narrowbody jets for Aviation Week

Writing for Aviation Week’s Crossover Narrowbody Jets channel and examining the use of inflight entertainment and connectivity on these aircraft types, Bernie Baldwin writes:

“Time was – and it’s not so long ago – when the idea of inflight entertainment systems were the domain of long-haul aircraft and the idea of communication systems sending emails from a handset wasn’t happening anywhere, never mind to-and-from aircraft.

“Now, of course, inflight entertainment and/or communication (IFEC) systems are almost always on flights of much shorter range. After use on widebody aircraft, such equipment made its way onto the single-aisle workhorses. No reason, therefore, why crossover narrowbody jets such as the Airbus A220 and Embraer E-Jet families should not follow, given the sector lengths they regularly operate.”

Citing the example of deploying its award-winning portable wireless IFE solution, Bluebox Wow, on Air Astana’s Embraer E2s (as announced December 2018), Catherine Brown, Head of Marketing at Bluebox, agreed that W-IFE is particularly relevant for this type of aircraft saying, “Through the pandemic, W-IFE has not only proven much more resilient in terms of new investments but also for maintaining inflight services, and on narrowbody aircraft in particular.”

Commenting further, Brown said: “With domestic and to an extent regional travel proving more resilient during the global pandemic, and likely to see recovery earlier and faster, we at Bluebox expect to continue to see even more interest from these carriers seeking to reap the rewards of enhancing their inflight service with W-IFE.”

Click here to read the full article on Aviation Week Network’s website.