Chris Saul's Blog

Saturday June 07, 2008

iPod video affects air industry

When I work out who to fly with, the criteria are always price, timing and whether everything fits within Sun's travel policy. After that, given a choice, I'd usually find myself erring towards the carrier that had the best in-flight entertainment. If the choice was between arriving two hours later the night before but being better entertained on board, for example, I'd usually choose being entertained. Sitting on planes is boring and anything that would brighten up a trip would be welcomed. Now I simply don't care, as 99% of the TV I watch and music I listen to will be delivered via my iPod. As long as the price and time's right, in-flight entertainment's frankly no longer important to me at all.

I'd expect most regular travellers these days to own some kind of mobile video and music player. If you own one of these and regularly fill it up with stuff to watch, who cares if the plane you're on has 99 film channels or if it's just repeating the awful 'Just for Gags' programmes over and over again?

I wonder if mobile video player ownership can be mapped to any general trends in the way regular travellers choose who they fly with?

Off to Islamabad

Off to Islamabad tomorrow to see the Sun partner who has probably sold more Sun Rays than any other, worldwide. I'm particularly looking forward to learning from their team and hearing how they've deployed our kit, the architectures they're using, etc.

Should be an interesting trip - also with us will be the sales director for desktop, all the way from the US. I will post some photographic evidence later to prove that Americans do sometimes venture outside of their borders :)