Ryanair abandons paid-for inflight entertainment trial
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Ryanair abandons paid-for inflight entertainment trial
Thought this might be of interest to some - it just goes to show that you can't always milk cash from areas in which you don't have the know-how.
From FT.com:
Ryanair drops paid-for service
By Kevin Done, Aerospace Correspondent
Published: April 18 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 18 2005 03:00
Ryanair, the Irish low cost airline, has abandoned its experiment in paid-for inflight entertainment, after a disappointing response from passengers.
At the same time it is intensifying the low cost airline battle in Germany with plans to open a second German base in Lübeck to the north-east of Hamburg in addition to its present base at Frankfurt-Hahn.
EasyJet, Ryanair’s main rival, has already opened two German bases at Berlin-Schönefeld and Dortmund airports, while German low cost rivals are also expanding rapidly.
The inflight entertainment trial using handheld devices the size of a portable DVD player, to show movies, cartoons, sports and music videos, was launched on a trial basis last November.
It has been followed with intense interest by other airlines, in particular in the low cost sector. Similar trials are currently under way in the UK at both EasyJet and BMI British Midland.
When he launched the experiment Michael O’Leary, Ryanair chief executive, billed the move as “the next revolution in the low fare airline industry...We expect to make enormous sums of money. We wouldn’t do it, if we didn’t think it had huge revenue potential.”
The airline charged £5 or €7 a flight for the service, which was launched initially on five aircraft flying out of the airline’s main base at London Stansted airport, and it hoped originally to have its whole fleet of more than 90 aircraft equipped by last month.
Instead a Ryanair spokesman said the service was “being withdrawn because of lack of interest from passengers.”
The airline had planned to take delivery of 6,000 of the so-called digEplayer devices over five years from a US company APS, based in Tacoma, Washington State.
With an average spend of only 50 cents per passenger Mr O’Leary expected to generate €14m of additional revenues a year to boost the airline’s ancillary earnings and to offset the expected continuing decline in average fare levels.
Instead a Ryanair spokesman said the airline believed that inflight gambling could now have great potential for generating extra revenues, although there still had to be some technological advances, before it could proceed. The introduction of scratchcards had already proved “a phenomenal success.”
Web Barth, marketing director of APS, said that the flights on which Ryanair had been offering the inflight entertainment devices had been too short. “The ideal is six-hour flights to holiday destinations. Short flights or morning and business flights are problematic.”
Potentially Ryanair was going to be APS’s biggest customer, but Mr Barth said the digEplayers had proved successful at several other airlines including Alaska Airlines and KLM.
EasyJet said its two-month trial of similar devices, which was being run out of Newcastle and Nottingham East Midlands airports chiefly on longer routes to southern Spain, was due to finish at the end of April.
A spokesman said that demand was not a problem, but a key issue was the cost of buying in the content especially current release blockbuster movies, which the studios were now charging for on a per passenger basis rather than on a flat rate per month.
From FT.com:
Ryanair drops paid-for service
By Kevin Done, Aerospace Correspondent
Published: April 18 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 18 2005 03:00
Ryanair, the Irish low cost airline, has abandoned its experiment in paid-for inflight entertainment, after a disappointing response from passengers.
At the same time it is intensifying the low cost airline battle in Germany with plans to open a second German base in Lübeck to the north-east of Hamburg in addition to its present base at Frankfurt-Hahn.
EasyJet, Ryanair’s main rival, has already opened two German bases at Berlin-Schönefeld and Dortmund airports, while German low cost rivals are also expanding rapidly.
The inflight entertainment trial using handheld devices the size of a portable DVD player, to show movies, cartoons, sports and music videos, was launched on a trial basis last November.
It has been followed with intense interest by other airlines, in particular in the low cost sector. Similar trials are currently under way in the UK at both EasyJet and BMI British Midland.
When he launched the experiment Michael O’Leary, Ryanair chief executive, billed the move as “the next revolution in the low fare airline industry...We expect to make enormous sums of money. We wouldn’t do it, if we didn’t think it had huge revenue potential.”
The airline charged £5 or €7 a flight for the service, which was launched initially on five aircraft flying out of the airline’s main base at London Stansted airport, and it hoped originally to have its whole fleet of more than 90 aircraft equipped by last month.
Instead a Ryanair spokesman said the service was “being withdrawn because of lack of interest from passengers.”
The airline had planned to take delivery of 6,000 of the so-called digEplayer devices over five years from a US company APS, based in Tacoma, Washington State.
With an average spend of only 50 cents per passenger Mr O’Leary expected to generate €14m of additional revenues a year to boost the airline’s ancillary earnings and to offset the expected continuing decline in average fare levels.
Instead a Ryanair spokesman said the airline believed that inflight gambling could now have great potential for generating extra revenues, although there still had to be some technological advances, before it could proceed. The introduction of scratchcards had already proved “a phenomenal success.”
Web Barth, marketing director of APS, said that the flights on which Ryanair had been offering the inflight entertainment devices had been too short. “The ideal is six-hour flights to holiday destinations. Short flights or morning and business flights are problematic.”
Potentially Ryanair was going to be APS’s biggest customer, but Mr Barth said the digEplayers had proved successful at several other airlines including Alaska Airlines and KLM.
EasyJet said its two-month trial of similar devices, which was being run out of Newcastle and Nottingham East Midlands airports chiefly on longer routes to southern Spain, was due to finish at the end of April.
A spokesman said that demand was not a problem, but a key issue was the cost of buying in the content especially current release blockbuster movies, which the studios were now charging for on a per passenger basis rather than on a flat rate per month.
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I used one of these in KLM World Business from AMS to AMM, a four to five hour flight. I managed to take in X Men 2, two episodes of Friends and just scraped in the closing credits of X-Files as we got put in the hold due to fog.
The units themselves are simple to use and operate, and work beautifully. One thing though is that you simply balance the thing on the tray table so it leaves no room for your food tray and even a few drinks squashes things in a bit. They also look pretty delicate and expensive to fix and I can imagine with Ryan's chav clientele they'll get bashed about and have drinks spilled in them etc. All a bit of a faff on a short flight!
The units themselves are simple to use and operate, and work beautifully. One thing though is that you simply balance the thing on the tray table so it leaves no room for your food tray and even a few drinks squashes things in a bit. They also look pretty delicate and expensive to fix and I can imagine with Ryan's chav clientele they'll get bashed about and have drinks spilled in them etc. All a bit of a faff on a short flight!
Last edited by reverserunlocked; 19th Apr 2005 at 02:49.
Paxing All Over The World
With the prevalence of portable CD/MD/MP3 players, the possibilities for this to make money on short flights always had to be very low.
On a sector of over two hours, it might be worth getting one but not on shorter flips. For medium haul (2-5 hrs), there is some chance, as it can make up for the sophisticated systems (free) normal only on long haul.
For myself, I would not bother. I choose the music I take with me as well as the reading matter.
On a sector of over two hours, it might be worth getting one but not on shorter flips. For medium haul (2-5 hrs), there is some chance, as it can make up for the sophisticated systems (free) normal only on long haul.
For myself, I would not bother. I choose the music I take with me as well as the reading matter.
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I've been flying quite a lot with the low cost carriers recently. It's hard to think of new services they could provide that I would actually pay for.
Most of the time I travel with hand luggage only to avoid waiting around for baggage reclaim.... only to find a long queue at security/passport control both on departure and arrival. On one occasion we had to wait outside in the rain at Eindhoven.
Perhaps they could fund some extra passport control officers for the exclusive use of paying customers? Ideally I'd like to be able to buy a book of "get out of jail" cards and choose when I use them depending on the length of the queues.
Some form of season ticket or discount for a book of 5 or 10 tickets on the same route might also be of interest.
Most of the time I travel with hand luggage only to avoid waiting around for baggage reclaim.... only to find a long queue at security/passport control both on departure and arrival. On one occasion we had to wait outside in the rain at Eindhoven.
Perhaps they could fund some extra passport control officers for the exclusive use of paying customers? Ideally I'd like to be able to buy a book of "get out of jail" cards and choose when I use them depending on the length of the queues.
Some form of season ticket or discount for a book of 5 or 10 tickets on the same route might also be of interest.
