Project PISCES: Developing an in-flight entertainment system for smart devices

Abstract

In-Flight-Entertainment (IFE) systems are the most important services which are provided by airline companies to improve the quality of travel experiences especially in intercontinental and long distance flights. Besides, IFE systems are one of the most important marketing tools for airline companies. However, airline companies don't prefer to use IFE systems for all flights due to increasing cost of aircraft, cost of flight, total weight of aircraft, fault based delay time, maintenance duration and decreasing payload capacity of aircraft, etc. In general, IFE systems are preferred for long distance flights because of all mentioned reasons. This situation is a cause of revenue loss for airline companies when total number of short distance flights and number of passengers are considered. In this study, mobile application which is called PISCES has been developed to present features of the IFE system. By using PISCES, passengers can use their smart devices during flight without any additional equipment to access IFE which is provided by airline companies during not only intercontinental and long distance flights but also short distance flights. Thus, current IFE system which is approximately 4 kg per seat with cabling, will be removed. Because of this reason, total weight of aircraft, flight cost, operational cost, maintenance duration and carbon emission will be reduced per flight. On the other hand, one of the most effective marketing tools of airline companies will be available for all flights. It means that developed application can provide direct and indirect advantages for not only airline companies but also passengers. Copyright © 2017 held by the authors.