Summary: Guest Mary Kirby is Editor in Chief of the Airline Passenger Experience magazine and the APEX media platform. She has extensive experience as an aviation industry journalist. Mary gives us some observations from the Aircraft Interiors Expo 2013 held in Hamburg April 9-11, 2013, including ultra-slim seats and positive hopes for passenger use of Personal Electronic Devices. IFE and connectivity are becoming the cost of doing business for airlines, and the inflight experience is approaching the multi-screen experience that people have now in their living rooms. Mary proves she was right and Max was wrong when he predicted that IFE systems would be replaced by passenger owned entertainment content. If fact, we’re seeing more screens inflight and more aircraft are now ordered with embedded IFE. We talk about who the inflight connectivity players are and what they are doing, and their participation in social media, including Panasonic Avionics, Gogo, OnAir. Jetblue has agressive plans with Live TV. Reaching out to consumers through social media is new for the IFE industry, and Mary believes this B2B2C communication is not only taking over the IFE world, but we may see the same with interiors. Speaking of interiors, Mary gives us some observations about the A350XWB and B787 interiors as they relate to the passenger experience. Find Mary Kirby at the APEX Editor’s Blog and on Twitter as @APEXmary. Follow APEX as @theAPEXassoc. The week’s aviation news: House passes bill allowing FAA to cancel air traffic controller furloughs FAA suspends furloughs, typo or not Hottie in seat 17D? Send her a drink! The Boeing 787 Dreamliner Rides Again: First Flight Dates for Each Airline For a little change of pace, David relates historical aviation events to the all the aviation geek birthdays occurring around this time. In this week’s Australia Desk: United 747 collides with aerobridge at Melbourne Airport. Virgin Australia finally gets approval to buy 60% of Tiger Airways, while Singapore Airlines buys a chunk of Virgin Australia from Richard Branson. Links : Plane sustains substantial damage in accident Virgin’s pounce on Tiger approved by ACCC ACCC clears Virgin’s Tiger takeover Find more from Grant and Steve at the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast, and follow the show on Twitter at @pcdu. Steve’s at @stevevisscher and Grant at @falcon124. Australia Desk archives can be found at www.australiadesk.net. Lt Cmdr Ian Sloane, Commanding Officer for the Royal Navy Historic Flight in front of the Sea Fury In this week’s Across the Pond segment: Returning to the Royal Navy Historic Flight we talk to Lieutenant Commander Ian Sloan about over wintering the aircraft and preparing for the airshow season. Links : Royal Navy Historic Flight Royal Navy Historic Flight on Facebook Royal Navy Historic Flight – 40 Years of display flying 1972-2012 Mentioned: Flight 405 – DC10 Landing at The Highway! Plane sustains substantial damage in accident Lunch with Tim Ahern, Vice President of American Airlines, and a Behind-the-Scenes Tour of AA Terminal 8 at JFK Airport Maine Warden Service plane lands on turnpike Groom Lake – Area 51 A-12 Archangel CIA Project Oxcart A-12 Blackbird Endeavour has made it home! Exhibition Now Open Flight school flies away with five world titles Calhoun Air Center Moving the Endeavour from LAX to the Science Center by Brian T. Coleman. Opening and closing music courtesy Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at www.brotherloverocks.com.
