Wireless IFE Embraer 190

[777]

I thought folks here might be interested to know that i flew MEL-CBR on the EJet on Wednesday and the wireless IFE was working. According to the cabin crew it was the first flight that it had been operational. I assume it will be through the rest of the fleet soon but my E190 flight back on Thursday night had no sign of it.

 

[Moopere]

I thought folks here might be interested to know that i flew MEL-CBR on the EJet on Wednesday and the wireless IFE was working. According to the cabin crew it was the first flight that it had been operational. I assume it will be through the rest of the fleet soon but my E190 flight back on Thursday night had no sign of it.

Flew ADL to PER this week on an E190. WIFI IFE was worknig there too, though it appeared to me that it was only a slightly expanded version of the 332 seat back IFE that I'd seen a week earlier going PER-MEL, so, not terribly exhilarating.

It was all a bit of a mess tbh. The crew did go to quite some trouble to explain to the various interested PAX how to get it working, first switch to 3g/4g to download the app from the store, then flip back to WIFI and look for the in-plane hotspot. More of a worry I think is that it wasn't clear, or made clear, what this all meant for 'flight mode' on your device. I assumed myself that the right process was to go into flight mode then manually switch WIFI back on - one wonders how many folks simply thought that you didn't need flight mode at all (or perhaps this _is_ the right way to do it?)

It was a long flight ADL-PER, nearly 4 hours - and no in-seat usb/power caused problems for many including me.

 

[notzac]

More of a worry I think is that it wasn't clear, or made clear, what this all meant for 'flight mode' on your device. I assumed myself that the right process was to go into flight mode then manually switch WIFI back on - one wonders how many folks simply thought that you didn't need flight mode at all (or perhaps this _is_ the right way to do it?)

That's the correct process - if you don't switch on flight mode first, the 3G/4G/LTE/whatever is still running on your phone - which would be in contravention of the current rules around radio transmitting devices.

 

[SeaWolf]

That's the correct process - if you don't switch on flight mode first, the 3G/4G/LTE/whatever is still running on your phone - which would be in contravention of the current rules around radio transmitting devices.

Not to mention the serious hit to your phone's battery life! I like the idea of the WiFi entertainment in principle, but I haven't had a chance to actually use it myself, so I suppose I'll reserve judgement until I do.

 

[Moopere]

Not to mention the serious hit to your phone's battery life!

Indeed.

I like the idea of the WiFi entertainment in principle, but I haven't had a chance to actually use it myself, so I suppose I'll reserve judgement until I do.

I've only used it once on the flight I mention above. My summation is that its better than no IFE at all, but thats about it. I certainly cant see any advantage to the customer over seat back IFE ... except, one assumes, slightly cheaper ticket pricing due to no capital investment by the airlines for the in seat version. Its probably better than the tablet version we saw for a year or so - those tablets really struggled with the amount of use they got and by the end were rubbish, poor battery, half the time I couldn't get the earphone sockets to work and the general lack of storage space meant the selection was extremely poor.

I suppose short flights of an hour or so would be ok, maybe, but longer ones without providing customers a usb (or other) charging option are a problem.

There is also an assumption that the customer is fairly tech savvy. For those who are, it probably doesn't seem like much, but I doubt if a lot of my family members could work it out without significant input from the crew. Considering that it all has to be set up before take off, I think its a big ask of the busy FA's.

 

[Bofter]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but XFB (ex EK A332) now has wireless IFE. It was announced today but might have been around a couple of weeks as I noticed my device had connected to the network when I last disembarked.

 

[vmile]

ADL-MEL Friday afternoon, Embraer 190, Wireless IFE, working well.

 

[Bofter]

I can confirm that the setup on XFB worked

 

[777]

Yes, i flew one of the old Emirates birds this week and it had wireless IFE. I think it was XFB.

I do struggle a bit with those arguing that iFE is too complex and difficult to use. I guess that's the luxury of being a Frequent Flyer -- once you've set it up once you never need to think about it again.

In general i think the mix of latest release movies could be improved but i suspect this is a licensing issue with Hollywood not wanting to open up new release content on devices that aren't secure. I also think they need a better mix of programming that covers the east coast stage lengths BNE-SYD-MEL-ADL are often only about 40 minutes of actual airtime with the device allowed to be used and there's very little interesting content in that range of time.

Here's a suggestion for Virgin and Lufthansa: Offer a menu option to sort by stage length as that's actually the main factor people use in deciding whether they can watch something.

On a longer flight i don't find it so hard to find a movie worth watching. Obviously gate to gate will ease that a little.

On the whole i think it's a good system. I don't really see the need for seat back IFE particularly once it goes gate-to-gate but there are quite a few tweaks that could make it better.

I am particularly enjoying the fact that it's consistent now -- it's on enough of the fleet that i now feel like i can watch half a movie on the way up and the other half on the way back.

 

[williamsf1]

does anyone know the rego/s of the E190 that have WIFI ?