Thales Unveils Core and Prestige, Extensions of Its Avant IFEC Platform
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APEX Insight: Thales InFlyt 360, introduced at AIX last year, showed Thales’ vision to enhance its Avant in-flight entertainment and connectivity system with a digital experience to surprise and engage passengers. Today, the avionics company has announced Core and Prestige, the fruits of that vision.
Thales today introduced Core and Prestige, two packaged in-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) solutions designed to cater to different airline market segments, based on its Avant IFEC system and are part of the Thales InFlyt 360 vision, which was introduced by the avionics company at last year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo. “The idea is to cover the whole span of our customers,” said Richard Perrot, vice-president, Marketing and Product Policy, Thales InFlyt Experience. “We did a tremendous study to better identify the market segments our customers belong to.”
“We did a tremendous study to better identify the market segments our customers belong to.” – Richard Perrot, Thales InFlyt Experience
With IAG Group launching Level and Air France coming out with Joon, Dominique Giannoni, CEO, Thales InFlyt Experience, says airlines are extending their mainline brands and looking at the passenger experience differently, so they are, too. “We want to address this differently also,” he said.
Core, as the product name suggests, is a turnkey solution that offers the essentials of an IFEC platform, offering content, targeted advertising and shopping. These features will be available to passengers through Select, Thales’ latest generation graphic user interface (GUI), which was developed in partnership with design agency Native, after a survey of consumer websites.
“We’re targeting customers that want an IFE solution that’s efficient, very affordable and ready for revenue generation, which could ultimately reduce the initial costs for the airline,” said Perrot. And since most of Core’s GUI elements are fixed, no additional software development will be required, allowing for a shorter lead time to deploy the system.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Prestige, which is meant to serve airlines that want to make a statement with their brand by offering the newest technology and devices. Prestige customers will be able to completely customize the IFEC experience by leveraging airline customer data such as age, nationality and airline history so that no two passengers see the same screen, for example.
Customers will have the entire gamut of Thales’ facilities and resources, including experts at its User Experience Center of Excellence in Irvine, California; Digital Factory in Paris; and cybersecurity centre in Orlando, Florida available to them.
“We are completely renewing and reshaping our entire offer by focusing on what our customer wants to achieve and the IFEC experience they envisage on board and want to deliver to the passenger,” Perrot said.