In the future, you may not need to bring reading material on an airline flight.
Michael O’Leary / The Herald
New state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment systems provide fliers with dozens of movies, hundreds of recorded television shows and thousands of songs.
That’s the centerpiece of the Passenger Experience Zone at the Future of Flight.
The in-flight entertainment exhibit was designed and donated by Panasonic Avionics of Bothell. The company – formerly known as Matsushita Avionics Systems – is the market leader in airline in-flight entertainment, claiming a 70 percent market share. It designed and donated the systems on display in the Passenger Experience Zone, along with the 25 plasma-screen monitors scattered throughout the museum.
Unlike on a long flight, you won’t be able to watch full-length movies at the Future of Flight. The museum’s designers asked Panasonic to steer away from that to keep crowds of exhibit goers from stacking up around the monitors.
But the display does show programming snippets that represent the wide range of entertainment that’s now available on top-of-the-line in-flight entertainment systems, said Charlie Seckinger, director of corporate management for Panasonic.
Panasonic’s contribution represents some of the juggling acts companies went through when making their donations to the Future of Flight, museum marketing director Sandy Ward said.
“We struggled with this, to be honest,” Seckinger said. “Is it a training kiosk or an educational piece, or is it a live demonstration?”
Seckinger said Panasonic wanted to show off its state-of-the-art stuff. But at the same time, it didn’t want to give away any proprietary secrets to its competition. It also had to take customer sensibilities into account; the systems Panasonic provides airlines are highly customized, and a key part of their efforts to build brand recognition.
And it didn’t want something too attractive – like full-length movies – that would be a distraction.
What it came up with was a display that incorporates all the major elements of top-notch systems – video and music on-demand, online shopping and destination information about cities a traveler will visit.
The exhibit also shows the differences between systems in first-class and economy seating, Seckinger said. And videos and other displays show “the technology under the hood,” he said. “It goes through all the ‘geek speak.’”
“We’ve created a fairly substantial in-flight entertainment exhibit,” he said. “Overall, we’re pretty happy with it.”
Panasonic Avionics took some heat from its Japanese parent company about the amount of time and money that went into its donation to the Future of Flight, Seckinger said. But local managers argued that if ever there was a donation to make, this was it, he said. “It’s in our community, and it’s in our industry.”
It could even prove to be a valuable tool for Panasonic’s Bothell-based employees, who typically don’t get to see how their products are used, Seckinger said.
“Ninety percent of our employees have never seen our systems working,” he said. “They’ll be able to bring their families and show them. I’m personally going to bring my family in. They’ve never seen it, either.”
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