American Airlines offering PMPs to upper class fliers

Bored and lonely first class and business class transcontinental fliers on American Airlines will now be treated to branded Archos players to while the time away with pre-loaded video and audio programming. Such premium fliers will be able to opt for an Archos 704, while all passengers on MD-80 flights between LA and Chi-town can get an Archos 605 to play with -- though the economy peeps have to pay. AA is packing the 704 with Bose Noise Canceling headphones, and the 604 with "high-end" earbuds, and has feature films, TV, news, music videos, AA radio and music CDs pre-loaded. Right now American Airlines is running a four month test of the service, which is sure to incur a few more thefts then those headrest-mounted displays cropping up on certain airlines, but a nice bit of good will from discerning portable media consumers.

[Via PocketSynch]

[kingofwale @ May 1st 2007 9:04PM]

Guarantee 80% of loss rate. only idiots wouldn't take those. that's a 400 dollar player

[Serge @ May 1st 2007 11:00PM]

"Guarantee 80% of loss rate. only idiots wouldn't take those. that's a 400 dollar player"

When you're paying more then $10,000 for a transcontinental round trip in first class somehow a $400 pmp that says "Property of AmericanAirlines" is not all that attractive any more.

[Jason @ May 2nd 2007 2:03AM]

"Guarantee 80% of loss rate. only idiots wouldn't take those. that's a 400 dollar player"

Yeah, only idiots . . . you know, like those ideiotic people who don't steal things from other people. The kinds of idiots who, if they see a laptop computer left on a desk at an airline club actually LEAVE it there instead of grabbing it and running.

First off, most people don't steal stuff as a matter of course.

Second, I'd guess AA recognized the portability factor and will either be hanging onto something (say a driver's license or credit card) or else will only be lending them out with a credit card imprint or contract that says that if it's not returned they can charge you the full retail price, no doubt plus content costs.

I think this sounds great and i hope to have a chanec to try it out!

--Jason

[Chuck Browne @ May 1st 2007 9:24PM]

Alaska Airlines rents digiplayers, a proprietary hard-drive video device, for $10. The sky waitresses track (by seat) who rents them, and collects them up at the end of the flight. They're pretty anal about collecting them up.

I can see potential issues with the Archos units if folks bring their own units onboard, and the attendants attempt to take those mistakenly.

[Sandeep @ May 1st 2007 9:47PM]

but they wouldn't be branded with American Airlines if they brought them on. Unless of course they stole it on their last trip.

[BiG� @ May 2nd 2007 1:30AM]

As a frequent Alaska Airlines passanger, I have become fairly accustomed to the Digiplayers (though I most often just pack my 12" PB up with a personal movie mix) and have been surprised at the lack of use on most other planes. Sure beats waiting for all the other video channels to finish before the programming cycling for the second (third, fourth, fifth...you try flying to Asia from the States...). Alaska, beyond the anal attention the stewardesses, as mentioned by Chuck Browne, the Digiplayer uses a proprietery battery and charging dock, not an unhackable solution, but certainly a fair deterant - though, all that said, the Archos are all sexier units.

[kingofwale @ May 1st 2007 9:50PM]

>I can see potential issues with the Archos units if folks bring their own units onboard, and the attendants attempt to take those mistakenly.


See, if they only use Zune, they wouldn't have this problem at all. :)

[Juaquin @ May 1st 2007 10:55PM]

High-quality earbuds? I'm guessing that either:
a) They're actually cheap earbuds, so a pair for every person or
b) You're going to get a nice pair of Shure earbuds - that have been in someone else's ears

Neither seem like such a great solution - just get some Grado or Sennheiser headphones - no earwax and high quality.

[Kev50027 @ May 2nd 2007 12:13PM]

Sure headphones offer replaceable plugs, so that's a non-issue.

[procon @ May 1st 2007 11:07PM]

This is a marketing gimmick and not a technological improvement. Unless they want us watching these in the lavatories, what's the point of giving us portable video players? Just beef-up the current entertainment system that is piped through the headset-embedded LCD screens.

[FS1 @ May 1st 2007 11:17PM]

Anybody who doesn't return a player on a flight will get to discuss the matter with the police meeting the flight when it lands. The problem won't be theft as much as it will be players breaking down and people complaining.

[Tom @ May 2nd 2007 7:34PM]

Because it's cheaper for the airlines to distribute these rather than upgrade the in-flight entertainment systems.

[Burke @ May 1st 2007 11:29PM]

AA already has In Flight Entetainment (IFE) on their 777's as it is; and in economy! I don't see the point of offering these when you already have and LCD screen in the seat infront of you. If you want more content then add more to the server thingy on the entire plane. You run the risk of people pocketing these bad boys, I would.

[Richard @ May 1st 2007 11:36PM]

I just flew AA Business class to Frankfurt 2 days ago, and got a media player, though it wasn't this one. It was an old clunky huge thing. It did come with the Bose QC3 headphones which were great to try out, and while the thought occurred to me to steal the things (I wouldn't have) I'm sure they kept a list of everyone who had one

[Andrew @ May 2nd 2007 12:02AM]

I agree with serge, you're paying a lot of money for 1st class because money is not that hard to come by, why would you risk jail time for a $400 POS with AA on the screen?

[LordJohnWhorfin @ May 2nd 2007 12:09AM]

I guess it's a lot cheaper than outfitting their creaking old planes with proper state-of-the-art entertainment systems like Virgin Atlantic or Singapore Airlines does. 10" screens at every economy seat and your choice of 50 movies that you can start and pause whenever you like, CD library... and the best first class beds in the industry. Even if AA *gave* me that crappy player I couldn't be bothered with their decrepit airline. Go, Virgin, go!

[mentalsticks @ May 2nd 2007 7:17AM]

Thank you, Jason, you're the only commenter who seems to realize that stealing isn't normal behavior.

[Blasterman @ May 2nd 2007 11:29AM]

American has provided Bose headsets to passengers for years. They and other airlines have long provided portable DVD players. The loss rate is practically zero. The flight attendent simply logs the seat number of the passenger and then retrieves the unit 20 minutes before landing.

[Rightclick @ May 2nd 2007 10:12AM]

Business/First class in many airlines have long been handing out portable DVD players that passengers are required to return. I have not heard of a loss rate problem. Sure the economy class thing is new but I doubt that AA is going to load a plane having 200 of such devices. I think it will be first come first serve in Economy. Still curious as to how much they'd charge.

[BigReg @ May 2nd 2007 11:29AM]

Firstly, the mentioned flights do NOT all cost $10k/seat. There are many times you can fly JFK-SFO roundtrip for ~$1.5k in First, or less.

Secondly, this is great (I'm an AA flier), but I'd rather have for pay internet access instead of this!

[Juaquin @ May 2nd 2007 7:23PM]

Uh...I have a pair of Shures, and yes, they do have replaceable sleeves. However, I still don't want a pair that have been stuck in someone else's ears. Shure has earwax guards that go over the channel for a reason. Not only is it impractical to replace the sleeve and earwax guard each time, the rest of the earbud was still in that persons ear, if not stuck deep inside. I'll say no thanks to that.

[James @ May 2nd 2007 3:32PM]

I've got to think that anybody who can afford to fly first class can afford to shell out ~$200 for a medium-end PMP -- or a PSP or DS or similar, for that matter -- before they even step on the plane. If they want to improve entertainment, how about giving everybody a single 110v/60Hz power outlet? When I fly (which, granted, isn't that often) I always see people whipping out laptops, Game Boys, iPods, portable DVD players... but almost nobody brings the weird power adapter to run whatever the gadget is off an airplane power connector, if you even have one. That means that as your flight time creeps up over 3 hours, the chances of your laptop battery holding out the whole time drops off significantly.

I know it's *possible* to run 110v around the plane, 'cause some restrooms have a shaver outlet, so why not just give one to everybody? Oh, right -- they can't charge ten bucks a person for that.

[larry mcsandals @ May 2nd 2007 11:05PM]

take that brittish airlines!

[Les @ May 5th 2007 3:01PM]

The MD-80's are planes without entertainment to begin with. This is a simple solution to appease the long-haul customers who get stuck on a 4hr + md80 flight and don't have anything better to do. The MD80's are crappy enough that installing in-seat entertainment probably wasn't fesable.

I for one, am excited about this, considering I fly AA MD80's quite frequently.