Posted by DEFCON4
Rockwell Collins produced a reasonable IFE system at a price.....cheap
Wrong, at the time QF ordered the Rockwell Collins IFE, both SQ & CX were experiencing very significant reliability issues with their systems and R/C convinced QF that there system was better technology and more reliable. History now shows that it wasn't. The system was definitely not cheap.
They are doing it again with Panasonic on the A380.
The Panasonic IFE team proudly claim that QF is using more of the features that their system is capable of, than any other airline that has ordered it. The Panasonic facility in the US that has been developing the product for its customer airlines has a secure room for each airline and staff that work on an airline's product are not allowed to enter another airline's room. Obviously, the more system features that you use, the more money you have to pay, so you can't say that Qantas is taking the cheap option.
It will be interesting to see how many of the B744's will be refurbished as there are quite a few scheduled to go to the desert as more A380's arrive. Obviously the 6 B744 ER's and OJS/T/U will be updated but apart from that depends on how long the remaining aircraft will be in service.
Also, they may justify a business case to replace the R/C IFE system in the A330 fleet with the Panasonic system. Reliability issues have caused significant adverse Pax comments in market surveys.