airlines

Rick Warren – Managing Partner/CFO, Post Modern Group

Posted on 21.01.12

January 2012 was a rather special month at the Post Modern Group featuring not just one but three notable anniversaries. Co-founders Amir Samnani and Rick Warren both turned 50 and The PME Interview notched up its 50th edition. It seemed therefore a fitting occasion to invite Managing Partner/CFO Rick Warren into the CNBC Studios in London to debate the future for traditional labs as airlines move more and more to a pure digital product.

In a remarkably candid interview, Rick discusses the threat from major hardware manufacturers who want to bypass traditional labs by setting up an iTunes style service for airlines and reveals the true cost to PME of launching a content service provider.

To celebrate the 50th PME Interview, PME is giving away an iPad 2 so keep watching to find out how you can win this gorgeous piece of kit.

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Michael Reilly – Chief Operating Officer, Stellar

Posted on 08.12.11

It’s taken a while but finally the in-flight iPad is a reality. At least two airlines, Air Baltic and Jetstar are now handing out iPads to business passengers and renting them to economy and coach passengers. Also British Airways recently announced that they would be making iPads available to First Class passengers to supplement the existing in-flight entertainment system. All this must be music to the ears of Content Service Provider, Stellar, who’ve been championing the iPad for some time now and is supplying content for iPads on Jetstar. Michael Reilly, Chief Operating Officer at Stellar, is Steve Harvey’s special guest on today’s PME Interview.

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Tagged with: Air Baltic • airlines • British Airways • Content Service Provider • entertainment • First Class • in-flight • iPad • Jetstar • Michael Reilly • passengers • Stellar

Ken Gile and Dan Kerrison – flydubai

Posted on 25.11.11

The Dubai based low cost carrier, flydubai, definitely raised the competitive bar when it announced the installation of the Lumexis “fibre to the seat” inflight entertainment system on all new 737 aircraft starting November 2010. Once each new plane is handed over by Boeing, the seats and screens are installed by a team of engineers working around the clock at an airfield near Seattle. Twelve months on from the launch, how have passengers responded to the availability of inflight entertainment and, more importantly, are they prepared to pay for content? Two gentlemen from flydubai with all the answers are Captain Ken Gile and Dan Kerrison.

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Tagged with: 737 • aircraft • airlines • Boeing • captain • Dan Kerrison • entertainment • fibre to the seat • Fly Dubai • flydubai • in-flight • Ken Gile • Lumexis • Seattle

Peter George – Vice President, Sales and Acquisitions, Jaguar

Posted on 21.10.11

When it comes to spotting a great airline movie and securing the In-flight rights, you’d be hard pressed to beat today’s guest on the PME Interview. Peter George is a senior member of the team at the independent In-flight movie distributor, Jaguar. Peter is one of the most experienced operators in this very competitive field and today he talks to Steve Harvey about how he came to get into the business and what makes a good In-flight movie.

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Tagged with: airlines • Distribution • in-flight • independent • Jaguar • movies • Peter George • rights

Christiane Ducasse – Vice President of Sales, Smartjog

Posted on 08.10.11

Can you think of a smart way to send movies and TV programs around the world without using Fedex or DHL? Perhaps we can jog your memory?

For a number of years now, distributors, labs, hardware companies and content service providers have been using Smartjog to send encrypted TV shows and movies around the world electronically instead of using a courier service. Now airlines are starting to see the benefit of using the service for delivering content files in minutes rather than days.

Time to find out more as Steve Harvey meets with the Vice President of Sales at Smartjog, Christiane Ducasse.

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Tagged with: airlines • Christiane Ducasse • courier service • delivering content files • movies • Smartjog • TV shows

Mohamad El Assaad – Senior Manager, IFE, Gulf Air

Posted on 23.09.11

This week sees the inaugural flight of the first aircraft to feature Panasonic’s new Global Communications Suite, eXConnect.

Gulf Air is the launch customer and, in this exclusive PME Interview, Mohamad El Assaad, Senior Manager, IFE and Communications, reveals the airline’s new Skyhub product.

If you’re an airline thinking about upgrading your in-flight connectivity and communications you won’t want to miss it!

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Tagged with: aircraft • airlines • connectivity • entertainment • eXConnect • Global Communications Suite • Gulf Air • IFE • in-flight • Mohamad El Assaad • Panasonic • Skyhub

David Coiley – Director of Aeronautics, Inmarsat

Posted on 24.07.11

When you meet with one of those terribly nice techie people at a trade show like APEX and they start talking about satellite communications and the fact that Ku band is better than L band but what they’re really looking forward to is Ka band, do your eyes glaze over or do you just feel horribly inadequate? Well here at PME we thought it high time to come to your rescue and shed some light on these mysterious terms and how they’re going to affect airlines and inflight entertainment in the future. Steve Harvey’s special guest today is the Director of Aeronautics at Inmarsat, David Coiley…

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Tagged with: Aeronautics • airlines • APEX • communications • connectivity • David Coiley • entertainment • in-flight • Inmarsat • Ku band • L band • satellite

Julia Lewis – BBC

Posted on 09.07.11

Combine the words in-flight entertainment and the BBC and the name instantly springs to mind is Julia Lewis. Since the mid 80’s, Julia had attended countless WAEA conferences and TV markets promoting top rated BBC shows like Top Gear and Life On Earth to airlines. Then quite suddenly earlier this year, Julia made a life changing decision to take an early retirement to spend more time with her two children, Alice & George and to catch up with friends and family. In this PME Interview Julia talks about her introduction to the BBC and to in-flight entertainment and what happened when she became trapped in an elevator with two of Britain’s top comedians!

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Tagged with: airlines • BBC • entertainment • IFE • in-flight • Julia Lewis • Life On Earth • markets • television • Top Gear • tv • WAEA

Craig Foster – IMS Research

Posted on 05.06.11

Mention the word “Connectivity” to an airline boss and his reaction may alternate between hope and horror. Hope that someone can provide a reliable service to keep passengers connected in the air, horror that the airline might end up making a substantial investment based on a predicted usage figure that turns out to be wildly optimistic. A UK company IMS Research has just published a report entitled ‘The Future of In-flight Wi Fi and Cellular Connectivity’ which addresses many of these concerns and contains details of those airlines that have taken the connectivity plunge and attempts to assess whether they are currently sinking or swimming. In today’s PME Interview Steve Harvey discusses the report with the author Craig Foster.

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Tagged with: airlines • cellular • connectivity • Craig Foster • future • IMS Research • in-flight • passengers • Wi-Fi

Tal Kalderon – In-flight Entertainment Manager, El Al Israel Airlines

Posted on 24.02.11

Many IFE managers in our industry started with an airline background and, when appointed to the position, had to learn about the entertainment business. Our guest today came from a television background and had to spend his first few months researching the airline industry. Tal Kalderon is In-flight Entertainment Manager at El Al Israel Airlines and on the PME Interview he talks to Steve Harvey about some of the challenges he faced when he first started in the job nearly five years ago.