Monday, January 29, 2007

Lufthansa to Passengers: Sorry About The Windows

I just arrived in India for four day visit. I came over on Lufthansa from San Francisco to Frankfurt and then on to Bangalore. On the San Francisco to Bangalore flight, Lufthansa finally showed their new business class along with their new AVOD in flight entertainment system.


As IFE systems go, the selection of music and video was good. Unfortunately, the system was slow as molasses and clumsy to use. Movies occasionally ground to a halt and music sometimes wavered or cut out. At one point, an announcement was made to the entire plane apologizing for the technical issues with the system. Towards the end of the flight, the cabin crew had to reboot the IFE system. At that point, we got to see some interesting details:


- System software: Microsoft Windows CE
- System Integrator: Rockwell Collins


Lufthansa also fixed their in-seat power plug adapters. The old ones, though ostensibly a regular plug, never worked very well. The new ones have a tight fit and seem to work well without an adapter. There was an Ethernet plug and USB plug in my seat as well, but I didn't get around to trying them out.