Behind the Scenes of American Airlines’ Decision to Offer Free IFE
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APEX Insight: After Delta Air Lines rolled out free in-flight entertainment (IFE) on most of its aircraft earlier this summer, American Airlines last week announced complimentary fleet-wide IFE across all cabins. APEX Media spoke to Brian Richardson, American’s director of In-Flight Entertainment and Connectivity and president of the APEX board of directors, about the decision.
Following a year of record-breaking profits in 2015, US carriers have been investing more in the passenger experience. What started with United Airlines’ introduction of upscale snacks, such as stroopwafels and illy Coffee, continued this summer when Delta Air Lines announced it was bringing free in-flight entertainment to all but its smallest aircraft.
Last week, American Airlines (AA) joined the free-for-all, becoming the second of the “Big Three” US carriers to offer free fleet-wide in-flight entertainment. AA announced that its full library of American Spotlight IFE content – including more than 160 movies (50 of which are new releases), 300 TV shows, 20 games and over 700 songs currently available on over 280 aircraft – will be complimentary on both seatback screens and personal electronic devices for passengers in all cabins across its fleet.
Writing on his View From the Wing blog, Gary Leff suggests that, of all amenities, it’s logical for airlines to offer IFE for free. “Once you offer it on board, there’s no incremental cost for each additional passenger to access it. And one passenger’s access doesn’t trade off with another’s. The airline isn’t rationing a scarce resource or incurring additional cost,” he argues.
“One of the factors that prompted us to make the change now is how quickly our fleet of domestic aircraft with seatback entertainment continues to grow.” €” Brian Richardson, American Airlines
Speaking to APEX Media, Brian Richardson, AA’s director of In-Flight Entertainment and Connectivity, says adopting complimentary fleet-wide IFE across all cabins had been in the offing for some time. “One of the factors that prompted us to make the change now is how quickly our fleet of domestic aircraft with seatback entertainment continues to grow, and we want all our customers to be able to enjoy these new systems and stay engaged throughout the flight,” he says.
Richardson also boasts that the addition of privacy-view filters on seatback screens allows the airline to show almost all of its movies and TV shows unedited. “By extending the complimentary entertainment to all cabins domestically, more of our customers will be able to discover the wide range of entertainment content that’s only available on American.” Currently showing on AA’s American Spotlight seatback IFE system are critically acclaimed films such as The Revenant, Room and Carol, along with television series such as Game of Thrones and Ray Donovan.
“More of our customers will be able to discover the wide range of entertainment content that’s only available on American.” €” Brian Richardson, American Airlines
But what about the third of the “Big Three” carriers? Speaking to APEX Media, Jonathan Guerin, Communications Manager for United Airlines, said that the carrier already offers plenty of free options. “With the exception of DirecTV, most of United’s in-flight entertainment offering is free. United offers more free entertainment streamed to personal devices than any other airline in the world.”
“United offers more free entertainment streamed to personal devices than any other airline in the world.” €” Jonathan Guerin, United Airlines
Will AA’s move toward fleet-wide complimentary IFE be supplemented with additional revenue streams? According to Richardson, not yet. “We’re always looking at new opportunities to offer additional products to our customers, but there are no immediate plans for seatback IFE other than the existing advertising options.” But he says, “If anything, I see more merchandising opportunities on the ground with delivery in the air.”