In-flight entertainment has evolved at a rapid pace in recent years. Seat-back entertainment centers changed the travel experience, especially once they made their way onto domestic flights.
Yet today, those screens are already on the decline, as airlines recognize that their passengers are paying more attention to the mobile devices they carry onto the plane. Rather than engage with the seat-back console, they expect mobile entertainment via Wi-Fi connectivity.
But while Wi-Fi is almost always available, it may not be strong enough to provide an optimal mobile video viewing experience.
If the flight lacks a seat-back screen, the airline-provided options amount to this potentially bad wireless, or the analog standby, the in-flight magazine.
Smart travelers can sidestep this issue by downloading video from their favorite streaming app (if offered) before they board, in a transaction that cuts the airline out altogether.
Content, content, content
While it looks dire, this situation actually represents a huge opportunity to win back eyeballs and possibly capture even more of travelers’ attention during the flight.
Rather than abandon in-flight entertainment to streaming providers, airlines can actually capture that engagement for themselves by combining several assets they already own: the infrastructure of their apps, the licenses for movies and TV shows, and years of experience producing in-flight magazines.
Apps have become a ubiquitous part of travel, helping consumers manage their itineraries, make reservations, and even check in to board a flight.
Millions of travelers – from frequent flyers to occasional vacationers – have downloaded apps for their preferred airlines.
By making their apps more than a booking and check in tool, airlines and hotels can make their brands an even more integral part of the journey itself.
Dan Hurwitz - Penthera
With the infrastructure and adoption already in place, airlines simply need to take a page from the entertainment industry’s book and turn these apps into engagement hubs that will keep customers occupied throughout the course of a flight.
Airlines already license movies and TV shows for their trips – all they need to do is make it available for travelers to download via their apps.
They can offer a content library within the apps, and give travelers the option to download content for a limited period of time – say, 24 hours on either side of arrival. Frequent travelers already get pre-boarding, free drinks, and access to a club lounge.
Why not reward them with more video content? Airlines can easily let frequent flyers keep content on their devices for a longer period of time, or offer a larger library of options to choose from.
This solves a number of problems. For one, airlines no longer have to maintain the hardware for their in-flight systems, because they’ve already inadvertently outsourced it to the passenger.
As American Airlines pointed out two years ago, passengers are constantly updating their phones and tablets themselves.
If that’s the entertainment system passengers have chosen, airlines can stop upgrading their own systems, and in-flight crews no longer have to help passengers troubleshoot faulty systems and answer silly questions.
An in-app content library also solves the wifi issue, at least when it comes to entertainment. If consumers can’t get speeds to stream a video in the air, they can download something ahead of time, ensuring that they’ll have content throughout the flight.
There’s an even greater opportunity for engagement within the app when airlines borrow thinking behind the in-flight magazine.
At its most basic, the in-flight magazine is an ad delivery mechanism for the airline, tourism boards, restaurants, hotels, theme parks and other travel destinations.
The app can become the same, with similar content baked in, offering both text articles and video about the destinations, membership perks, even the planes themselves.
By opening up content opportunities to partners and advertisers, airlines can further monetize their in-app experience while delivering something the traveler finds valuable. They can also eliminate the costs of printing and distributing the magazines.
Wider opportunity
Airlines aren’t the only travel brands that can use of this idea. If you frequently stay in Starwood hotels, you’re familiar with the SPG program that comes on as soon as you turn on your room’s TV.
Housekeeping staff will sometimes even leave this programming on so you see it when you enter to your room. Hotel chains can push that very same programming through their loyalty apps.
Like airlines, they can offer a selection of downloadable movies and TV shows to guests for a limited period of time around their stay.
If the hotels can enable casting to their TVs, visitors can watch the downloaded content in the hotel room on the bigger screen, a deeply engaging experience.
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A guest departing for their return flight could board a plane with video content downloaded on both their hotel rewards and airline apps, ensuring that they have plenty of entertainment for the flight, and that they remain engaged with those two brands throughout the entirety of their travel time.
By making their apps more than a booking and check in tool, airlines and hotels can make their brands an even more integral part of the journey itself.
These brands already have the required infrastructure in place, and they already have millions of customers with the apps already installed.
Building an engagement hub within an app gives them traveler eyeballs, reduces the cost to maintain Wi-Fi systems, and provides a seamless way to distribute a wealth of entertainment and travel content that already exists.
The only thing these travel brands need to do is marry these sides of their businesses to create great value out of very little expenditure.
About the author...
Dan Hurwitz is chief revenue officer for
Penthera