British Arseways – the in-flight entertainment system

I flew from London Heathrow to Hong Kong with British Airways.

After my last experience with British Airways, when I flew a return trip from London to Los Angeles way back in 2004, I was hesitant to try BA long haul again. For short trips, I like BA over other airlines in Europe, even for all its faults, the ride is more enjoyable than with other airlines.

But long haul is a different story.

First, in-flight entertainment is pretty much essential – you can only read so many pages of a book before you’re all booked up – and with me being a very fast reader, I can finish a book in a few hours in a flight. Back in 2004, on that return trip to LA, a flight of some 10 to 11 hours, there were about three movies out of 12 that were subtitled (in English) on the outbound flight, but the return leg had no such subtitled movies at all. I complained to the duty manager at Heathrow airport on my return and she upgraded my domestic flight for me as I was so travel wary by that point.

Fast forward exactly four years. London to Hong Kong means stuck in a metal tube for just shy of 12 hours. I hoped the in-flight entertainment system has been upgraded. It was. It has over 100 channels of entertainment thanks to the marvels of computer technology. You’d be forgiven if you thought there would be at least ten channels with English subtitles (seeing as British Airways mostly operate out of the UK to far flung destinations). Nope, there were just two channels with subtitles – Ironman (a blockbuster movie) and some kids movie. That’s it. I have another 10 hours to kill.

I was very disappointed that my complaint four years ago has fallen on deaf ears and that BA haven’t used the new technology to provide subtitles. They lag behind competitors like Virgin Atlantic who provided portable DVD players with DVD in 2004 for deaf customers during flight. Malaysia Airlines had at least 20 movies with English subtitles. So did Singapore Airlines. If they can do it, why can’t BA match them or do better and subtitle the documentaries too?

A staff member at BA doesn’t seem to get it at all… the first paragraph seems to suggest I can’t watch subtitled programmes! I fired off a reply so we’ll see how this develops…

[quote="British Airways Customer Services"]
Thank you for writing to us. I am sorry you were disappointed with the
in-flight entertainment on your recent trip to Hong Kong. I can
understand how frustrating situation it must have been as could not
watch any programme with English subtitles. Please accept my sincere
apologies.

People’s tastes vary widely and we do try to meet the expectations of
our range of customers. We are now in the process of revolutionising
our onboard entertainment systems to give you more choice and control
over what you watch or listen to, and when, throughout your flight.

On all our long haul flights we are installing individual touch control
for every seat – with control over a choice of 100 films, TV programmes,
music albums, radio channels and audio books.

There will be a touch screen or handset fitted in each seat for you to
start, stop, fast forward and pause your own entertainment. For our
younger customers, we offer a dedicated Skyflyers selection of
children’s movies, TV, music and stories. In our FIRST, Club World and
World Traveller Plus cabins there is also a new choice of 20 games.

Another great innovation is the touch-screen questionnaire, so you can
tell us exactly how you feel about the entertainment selection on your
flight, and how we can improve it for you next time.

It will take a little while to roll out the new in-flight entertainment
system on all our aircraft, but I hope that next time you travel you
enjoy the range of entertainment on offer.

By way of an apology, I would like to offer you Highlife Shop! vouchers
for £50 with my compliments. You can put them towards items on British
Airways flights where the Highlife Shop! range is available. The expiry
date is shown on the voucher and they are not renewable. You will
receive it shortly at your postal address.
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