What Does The Future of In-Flight Entertainment Look Like?
In the modern day, in flight entertainment is crucial to an enjoyable flying experience. Whether that entertainment is via a screen embedded in the back the seat in front of you, or via your mobile device or tablet. Most passengers would agree that some form of stimulation is necessary to curb in flying anxiety at 30,000 feet — especially for long haul flights! But with the current advancement of technologies across multiple sectors, the real topic of discussion here is how can the in-flight experience be improved with new technologies or innovations?
Enhanced Screening:
Screens plays a huge role in our modern day activity, on a daily basis we are handling touch screens to some capacity, most of which are regularly increasing in size, decreasing in weight and evolving in flexibility. Flight entertainment may shift from in-seat visuals to devices that can be pulled from concealed areas of the the aircraft such as underneath seats, inside chair arms or above baggage holding areas, leading to more satisfying visual angles. Enhanced screening could additionally prevent the annoyance of passengers in front of you, whom recline their chair backwards on whim and ultimately interrupt your viewing. Other options are removing screens altogether and installing tablet-like devices or encouraging passengers to bring their own devices and make use of bluetooth or wi-fi technology, that provides access to the flight’s streaming service. However, additional screen usage does not come without risk factors, such as increased depression, anxiety, neck and back pain as well as others.
Virtual Reality:
The most popular form of in-flight entertainment enhancement is Virtual Reality. To keep things simple, VR is a simulated experience ( typically provided by eye goggles) that can be similar to or completely different from our real world environment. The excitement with this form of technology is the varied content it potentially offers. Passengers could have the choice of experiencing television programmes, films, visual games and even visual music playlists. Additionally, the VR experience being so remarkably immersive, with Goggles covering the whole eye and ear area of the face, passengers may not have to engage with any form of the flight process, if flying gives anxiety or stress, or fellow passengers are disturbing:
Environmental Stimulation:
As you may already know, quality entertainment is so much more than visual stimulation. It involves multiple sensory modalities, often including visual, auditory, haptic and olfactory infiltration. To enhance the flying experience, we could see airlines experiment with plane lighting, window tinting, boarding music, de-boarding music as well as air fresheners. Time plays a huge role in the effectiveness of these stimuli. Can you image boarding to music that is scientifically proven to reduce anxiety, just as you step onto the plane, right up until take off? What about a form of white noise that isn’t too disturbing but distracting enough to drown out other passenger conversations? What about bad smells? Let’s be honest, it is rarely ever pleasant. VentiFresh ECO is a new gadget that uses NASA-inspired technology to banish bad smells, could this be installed on airlines? The discussion of augmented reality has also been mentioned with regards to in-flight entertainment, with the creation of cloud-scapes or other emotionally settling images (football stadiums, a flowery garden, a beach) being used to alter the window viewing to more pleasant visuals outside of the aircraft.
