I know, I know, I’m back early. Actually, I’m still in the UK until tomorrow, but I have some free time and an internet connection, and I just can’t stay away for too long. So I don’t know if I’ll be back on the normal schedule just yet, but that will happen soon. I’ll also have a nice long trip report for you later this week or early the next.

But today I’d like to catch up on something that Delta rolled out last Wednesday: their new seats with in-seat video on the 737-800s.

Now this is the same seat they have on a good chunk of their 757s already. Like the 757 fleet, only some of the 737-800s will actually have the new interior, 28 out of 71 to be precise. And even those 28 won’t be done until May of next year, so it may be hard to find for awhile. And that brings us to the big question . . . how do you make sure you’re getting a plane with the new screens?

Unfortunately, Delta has decided to make it harder for you to figure this out when it comes to the 757. While before they used to have the “752″ code for airplanes with the new interior, it seems that they’ve now stolen that code to show if you’re on an international 757 with the new BusinessElite product or not (no difference in coach). If you’re flying domestically, the aircraft code no longer helps you. Fortunately, the seat maps are still different, even though the code is the same. If you pull up a seat map and coach starts with seats in row 20 and ends at row 45, you’re on an old interior plane. If it goes from row 18 to row 44, you’re on a new interior plane.

For the 737, it’s much easier for now. They’ve assigned the code “73H” for the new interiors and kept “738″ for the old ones. The 73H is supposed to be used for 737-800s with winglets, and they’re also installing winglets on those planes. So, could it happen that there’s a 73H that doesn’t have the new interior? Quite possibly, though I don’t know how they’re handling it internally. Your best bet is to default back to the seat map. On an old interior 737, coach ends with row 32 but on a new one, it ends with row 33. So as long as you see row 33 on the seat map, you’ll be on a plane with the new interiors (unless they swap it later, of course).

Really, the biggest problem here is that you have to go to these great lengths to find out what is going on. Most people either won’t do it or don’t know they can do it, and so I think Delta is bound to have lots of unhappy customers.

Not sure why, but some of my readers don’t seem to like my happy, kudos-filled posts like the Delta one from last week. I guess you’re looking for more CRANKY. With that in mind, I’ll be happy to oblige this morning.

I may like what Delta has been doing online lately, but I really can’t stand their billboard campaign. For months, there’s been this one billboard on Century Blvd, just east of LAX, that has taunted me. I finally snapped a shot of it last week:

Yes, I know. It looks innocent enough. But it isn’t. It’s a great example of Delta overpromising and underdelivering - exactly what an airline should NOT be doing. Let me explain.

As you can see in that picture, Delta is telling customers that flights will go by quickly because you have your own personal entertainment onboard. Yes, there is mice-type telling you that it’s not available on all flights, but nobody can see that. Even if they can see it, they aren’t reading it. All you see is a Delta plane with a cool piece of hardware in the back of it. What’s the chance you’ll get this super-duper system when you fly Delta out of LA? Not good. Take a look below to see the breakdown.

As of the September schedule, Delta will operate 680 flights per week out of LAX - that’s just above 97 per day on average. Of those 680, a whopping 79 have live tv and games as shown in that billboard. That’s just about 11 flights per day or 12% of the total. Another 3% have personal screens that just show movies in loops and 30% have overhead screens you watch with everyone else. But, if you fly from LA, you are most likely to be on the 55% of flights that have no entertainment at all. Yup, 55% of Delta flights are on regional jets.

So how do you get lucky? Well, you only get live tv and games if you fly to a Delta hub. All 39 weekly flights to JFK have it as do 13 to Atlanta, 12 to Cincinnati, 12 to Salt Lake, and 3 to Guatemala City. (Ok, that last one’s not a hub, but whatever.) And there are an additional 23 weekly flights to Atlanta that have personal screens but not live tv.

What you’ll want to do is look for aircraft type “752″ for live tv or “764″ and “777″ for personal screens with looping movies. I’m actually not even 100% sure on the 764, but that’s what I believe to be the case. Any other flight and you’re out of luck.

I saw this article online yesterday and just had to laugh. When I read the headline - “United to upgrade domestic in-flight video systems” - I got excited for a second. Are they going to install personal screens?!?

No, of course not. I should have known better. This is just a case of United trying to spin what is basically a cost savings measure.

Right now, United (and most other legacy airlines) are stuck in the 80’s. They still have to pop video tapes in to show movies onboard their domestic aircraft. This “upgrade” they’re working on is actually nothing more than getting rid of tapes and replacing them with servers that will digitally store the movies Tivo-style. Why? The article says it “aims to lure more domestic travelers.”

Yeah, right.

What does this mean for you? Well, there may be marginally better quality since it’s digital now. No more scratchy, damaged tapes to worry about. But nothing else changes. You won’t see anything on demand and there won’t be live tv. It’s still a single movie playing on the same screen that you can’t see way up in the aisles. It just means they’ll play them from a hard drive instead of off a tape.

For United, this is a case of spending money up front to reduce costs down the line. It’s not cheap to order a bunch of tapes and send them out to each aircraft a couple times a month. I guess it finally reached the point where the cost of replacing the system became less than the cost of continuing to operate it. So, they’ll get their cost savings and customers won’t get anything new. Nice attempt at some spin, United, but I’m calling you out.

One thing we can take from this is that United is probably not going to be installing personal video anytime soon on domestic aircraft. If they’re spending money on this system, they aren’t going to just pull it out to install an on-demand system soon after. Despite my excitement about the possibility, I’m also realistic. Personal screens are nice, but the cost to install and maintain is very high. It’s going to be hard for United to find a way to make enough money back from customers on domestic flights to offset the cost.

If there’s anything good in this release it’s that they plan on giving their planes deep cleanings more often. Now that has a direct impact on everyone who flies, especially those who ride on the grimy old 737s.

It looks like the time has come for inflight entertainment on turboprops. Thanks to the newly discovered In-flight Entertainment blog for pointing out the link to the press release that also had this picture.

Pretty nice looking for a turboprop, huh? Well, if you go to India, you’ll be able to fly this plane on Kingfisher Airlines. I am a little suspect on this press release’s claim that this is “the world’s first turboprop aircraft facilitating In-flight entertainment system” though.

I know there were plenty of piston engine props back in the day that had inflight entertainment onboard, so maybe by limiting this to turboprops, they can get away with this claim. Anyone know otherwise?

If Virgin America does ever get off the ground, the inflight entertainment system will definitely be pretty cool. I had heard the descriptions, but it doesn’t really come to life until you see it in action. This nearly 5 minute video appears to be made for more of a tech audience, but it gives you some insight into what’s unique about it.

I have to say that there are two things I really like about the system. First is that when you’re watching a movie, you can go to other menus and look at other parts of the system and the movie will be minimized in the corner. On most systems today you have to go away from the movie to do something else, but here you can continue to watch it in the corner.

The other cool thing is the food ordering process. You find the food and drink you want, swipe your credit card, and the flight attendant brings it to you. It definitely speeds up the process of food delivery and keeps the flight attendants from standing in the aisle to process payments.

Of course, you won’t see this on Virgin America unless they actually get approval to fly. So where are they now? Well, a bunch of airlines jointly filed asking the DOT to suspend the proceedings for approval. The DOT told them to shove it. Virgin America filed the required paperwork on January 30 which started a 14 day clock for responses to be filed. So, on February 13, that period ends and we should hear something new around that time.

This thing seems like it could go on forever, but now there’s word that if it doesn’t get approval in 6 months, the investors may pull their money out. I’m sure the other US airlines are going to do whatever they can to extend this process out that far. As I’ve been saying all along, the DOT is really what matters here. All eyes should be focused on them right now.

I’m not quite sure why Delta put this press release out when it did, but they did, so here’s the latest . . .

Delta reannounced today this transcontinental service that we already knew was coming. This new product supposedly takes the best of Song and brings it onto Delta. Here are the details of this new service.

• First class on every flight (unlike Song’s coach-only service)
• Personal screens with live television, pay per view movies, games, MP3s, surveys, and flight path maps in every seat (same system used by Song)
• “Signature cocktails” including the Mile High Mojito and Mango Kiss (from Song)
• Meals in first class and buy-on-board in coach will soon follow (hopefully these will be like the excellent options offered on Song previously)

That’s all pretty straightforward, right? The confusing part involves how these are being rolled out. The ultimate goal to be reached sometime in 2008 is to have this service available on all flights over 1,750 miles or 4 hours. Of course, it’s impossible to just roll it out all at once, so there’s a phased in rollout.

First up is the 48 757s from the old Song fleet. Since those already have the tvs, all they have to do is re-cover the seats and throw in some First class as well. They’ll have generous 33″ pitch in coach, so the legroom is good. Starting this month, there will be 18 conversions per month, so you can expect to see these enter the fleet quickly.

JFK will get these planes first.

By the end of November, all JFK flights to the West Coast will get this service. I’m guessing from this map that I found on Delta’s website that this somehow includes the not-so-west coast cities of Tampa and Orlando as well as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City.

Then it seems like Atlanta will be getting it next for its west coast flights.

As you can see on this mini-map, the west coast has a very broad definition. There are the real west coast cities of Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Ontario, Orange County, Los Angeles, and San Diego along with quasi-west coast cities of Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake, and Denver.

There are also a handful of cities in the east that don’t make much sense at first glance, including a bunch of Florida cities like Pensacola along with Baltimore, Philly, and New York. I’m sure these are included because the aircraft will be routed to those cities for utilization purposes. It’s just an added bonus for people in those cities.

The last map they offer is of Salt Lake City.

I think it’s funny they label this transcon service on the map considering that no flight from Salt Lake can technically be transcontinental, but they have Boston, Newark, and Washington/National on here as well as Portland, Seattle, and Sacramento. Strange.

Outside of these hubs, you can expect to see the long haul flying from Florida cities to the West and I would assume Cincinnati at some point. Those must be further down the line, maybe closer to 2008.

The moral here is that you should just be patient. You’ll be able to find out which flights have the new service on Delta’s website or on any site that uses OAG schedules. I know that we’ll be showing you which flights have it at PriceGrabber in the near future.

If you’d like to learn more, you can go to Delta’s media page and download the enormous 28MB video that last a little under five minutes that shows you all about the new onboard entertainment.

Smaller and smaller planes are travelling further and further every day. It used to be that every flight over the ocean had two aisles and at least 3 engines. These days, you’ll find single aisle aircraft going across the oceans regularly. Unfortunately, inflight entertainment has not kept pace.

On most widebodies, it’s standard practice to have a personal screen at each seat. Sometimes movies are shown on a loop, but increasingly often it’s a full on demand system. Even though narrowbodies, like the 757, have started flying more overwater routes, airlines have been very hesitant to install these systems.

Sure JetBlue has personal television and so do some others, but most don’t. Continental has the most 757 flights overwater, and they still have drop down screens in coach (for now). High class airlines like Eos (which flies between London and New York) simply hand out DVD players at each seat. Until now, I can’t think of a single 737 that has had personal screens installed despite it being the most popular jet aircraft ordered flying increasingly long distances . . . such as from California to Hawai’i and even from Panama to Brazil.

So, it was with some surprise (and a little relief) this morning that I saw Boeing announced it had installed its first in-seat video system on a 737. This one, for Jet Airways in India, has 7 inch screens with full on demand services in coach.

Let’s hope other airlines follow.

Air Canada announced some time ago that they’d be installing in-seat audio/video on demand on all their aircraft (even the small 70 seaters), and it’s now coming to fruition.

The Toronto Sun has a “review” of the new system on its website. I put “review” in quotes because they don’t actually have much to say about it other than this gem of a quote:

“I don’t find that the navigation is very good at all when you get into watching the video programming,” says MacArthur, who tried out the system during a recent flight to New York.

Yeah, that’s helpful.

What we do find out is that the new system has “16 to 24 movies, various TV shows and 50 music CDs. Later this summer it will include up to 10 interactive games and an interactive moving map with flight-path information.” Sounds to me to be a little light on the number of movies when compared to other airlines, but really, how many do you need?

Oh, and this is cool. “A USB port next to the monitor will allow passengers to upload games, while each seat will be equipped with a power outlet, says McKenven.” Can’t say I’ve ever seen that before.

Unfortunately, it’s only on 27 planes right now, but it should be done sometime next year fleetwide. This will help it compete internationally with just about every non-North American airline and domestically with WestJet. That airline currently offers Live TV.

This will try to answer the age old question of whether or not people are willing to pay for this. I know that I personally am happy to shell out a few bucks for that kind of entertainment and even more than that if it’s a really long flight. On the long hauls, this is becoming standard issue. (Yes, United, that means your 747s with big projector screens need to be updated.) But on the short hauls, this is still a rarity. I do hope it becomes the new standard.