Alaska Airlines Brings IFE to Tablets with Windows
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Following the trial of Windows-based tablets for a new in-flight entertainment experience earlier this year, Alaska Airlines will be deploying more than 7,000 8″ Toshiba Encore 2 tablets on its medium- and long-haul flights.
The tablet, which is complimentary in first class and available for rent in coach, gives passengers portable connectivity to in-flight Wi-Fi, one-touch activation to server streaming and access to preloaded content including new releases, TV shows, music, digital magazines, the XBOX game center and early-window films.
Running on Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry, passengers will be able to engage in two tablet activities at once with split-screen viewing, or watch a movie with subtitles with multilingual closed-captioning. As demonstrated in Microsoft’s promotional video below, the tablet can also be hooked onto the seatback so passengers can eat, knit, or fiddle with their phones while the content continues to play.
Alaska Airlines made an initial order of 7,000 tablets but due to high customer demand and anticipated growth of the airline, has since upped its order.
Windows collaborated with Skycast Solutions, a six-person start-up founded in 2011, on the development of the portable in-flight entertainment device called TrayVu8„¢. The company has previously worked with WestJet on a smaller and lighter version of the device and specializes in tablet-friendly cabin solutions as well as content security.
“Moving to Windows tablets enables us to provide a cutting edge experience for Alaska’s travelers… In particular, the robust security capabilities allow us to work with Hollywood studios to load ‘early window’ [still in theater] movies that wouldn’t be available without similar safeguards,” says Greg Latimer, president, Skycast Solutions.
Ratio, who is behind the user interface design, will be aggregating user analytics through Microsoft’s Azure Data Factory and will be overlooking software and content updates, which can be done with the simple swap of an SD card.
The tablet took a year to develop and will replace the digEplayer that was developed in 2003, also by Skycast Solutions. In 2013, Finnair tested a Windows tablet for in-flight entertainment, and other airlines currently using Windows’-based tablets for backend operations include Delta Air Lines and Emirates.
In an interview with Upstart Business Journal, Latmier says “The airlines are really going through their own change because a lot of airlines have seatback entertainment,” Latimer said. “They’re pulling out the seatback entertainment because it’s expensive and heavy. … We think we’re around three years ahead of [some of the changes] but we hope the airline industry is going to catch up.”
Stay tuned for more updates from Skycast Solutions at the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX).
For more on the Alaska Airlines’ Windows tablet, see the promotional video below:
https://youtu.be/lkji0o7KTTI