Welcome to the #PaxEx Podcast, which tracks the evolution of the airline passenger experience and aviation’s sustainability initiatives. We’re pleased to share our two-part interview with Panasonic Avionics vice president of product & portfolio management Andrew Masson, who speaks candidly about how “reliable, faster, low-latency connectivity” is coming to seatback IFE, and will in turn forever change the digital passenger experience.
“What we’re seeing now is more airlines making the choice of widening out their IFE platform to airplanes where they didn’t necessarily have it before, the narrowbodies, and where they do have it then creating a more connected, personalized experience, leveraging high-speed, low-latency Internet at the same time as their applications,” Masson said.
“And it’s really changing the game. It’s putting a lot of emphasis into our industry on the software side where we traditionally haven’t all been — not just Panasonic, but we all collectively haven’t been — that strong previously. We’re now upping that game. So we now have, you know, four big software centers working on creating personalized applications for the various airlines. The airlines are wanting to have more control. They want to take that control of their IFE a bit more. So we’re enabling that as well. And you’re going to have this connected experience. It’s going to change the way we all interact on the aeroplane.”
Panasonic’s new OLED-based Astrova IFE system, which has debuted aboard Icelandair’s first Airbus aircraft, an A321LR, is ready to support these new deeper integrations, Masson said.
Icelandair “uses Viasat, you could be using Panasonic, you could be using Starlink, we work agnostically with anybody,” added the Panasonic executive in reference to the connectivity pipe. Indeed, Panasonic is already having those conversations with its seatback IFE customers. United Airlines, for example, has tapped Space’s Starlink to support free Wi-Fi for passengers, and has vowed to “enable experiences in the sky at scale that no other major US airline provides, on seatback screens and personal devices simultaneously.”
