APEX TECH 2026: Meet APEX Director Dimitrios Tsirangelos, Who Believes IFEC is on the Cusp of True Personalization
Share
Spafax SVP Global Business Development and Growth Dimitrios Tsirangelos has been involved in the passenger experience industry for over three decades, and remembers attending one of the first World Airline Entertainment Association (WAEA) events. In December 2025, he became a newly appointed member of the APEX Board of Directors. APEX Insights spoke with him to find out his ambitions during his tenure.
Throughout his career, Tsirangelos has worked across the whole in-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) value chain, helping airlines and their partners to translate shifting passenger expectations into scalable solutions spanning content, operations, monetization and data-driven engagement. He explained, “Over time, my focus has increasingly moved towards integrated IFEC ecosystems, and how content, connectivity, user experience and data analytics come together to drive both satisfaction and sustainable revenue.”
“The skills I lean on most are ecosystem building and facilitation.”
He initially joined Spafax in October 2023 as VP Business Development, IFE Technology & Innovation before transitioning to his new role in January. “I sit at the crossroads between airline strategy, product and service design and the execution of specific programs or projects,” he said.
Tsirangelos believes it is this experience that will be useful to APEX as an association. “The skills I lean on most are ecosystem building and facilitation, bringing the diverse stakeholders to the table and translating between the airline priorities and the supplier reality for content service providers or experience service providers,” he continued.
During his time on the APEX Board of Directors, he hopes to “turn good intentions into complete initiatives.” He added, “One of my objectives is to contribute to standards, collaboration and industry progress. I would also like to focus on discussions around what creates measurable value not only for the airlines, but also for APEX’s supplier members, so that everyone sees APEX as an important place to be.”
“We are working on products and services that help airlines move away from static programming to dynamic and data-informed curation.”
Personalization is what most excites him about the current IFEC landscape, “but more than just the recommended titles we’ve had for years now.” Instead, Tsirangelos clarifies what he means by personalization is “an experience grounded in better metadata, context, signals and continuous measurement.” He added, “We are working on products and services that help airlines move away from static programming to dynamic and data-informed curation, which then provides clearer outcomes, better engagement, NPS improvements and higher ancillary revenue.
“We are interested in the intersection between cloud-based content streaming through the different LEO, GEO and mixed orbit systems; smarter edge architectures; improved content workflows that we are already utilizing today; and also privacy-respecting identity layers that enable consistent experiences across seatback, mobile and the whole connected journey. When all these pieces come together, finally personalization can scale across all business models. This is what excites me now and for the future.”
Dimitrios Tsirangelos is taking part in a panel discussion at this week’s APEX TECH event in Los Angeles. His session on “Edge Caching and Streaming” is scheduled for 04:30 PM to 05:15 PM on January 27.