Coffee, Tea or Doris Day
When it comes to fares and equipment, major U.S. airlines are so much alike that they must constantly maneuver for competitive advantage by offering some extra touch. They have tried champagne, caviar and credit, but the latest dogfight in the skies is over a rapidly spreading innovation that promises to change the whole character of flights: movies and TV shows in the air. In-flight entertainment, which was used by only two airlines only a few months ago, is causing more excitement in the industry than anything since the jet.
Last week Trans World Airlines, the first to introduce movies to fly by, took double-page ads in newspapers to boast of the superiority of its single, cabin screen over the smaller, seat TV screens just introduced by American Airlines. American, equipped to receive TV as well as to show Hollywood movies, fought back by running the World Series telecasts on its Chicago-Los Angeles flights. United Air Lines has just started showing cabin-screened movies on its Honolulu run, plans to extend the service soon to its transcontinental flights. Continental Air Lines next month will inaugurate a Golden Marquee movie service with small TV screens, and Pan American World Airways, Eastern Air Lines and several other lines are studying plans for providing their passengers with escapo-vision too. So swiftly has entertainment taken hold in the airline industry that delegates to the International Air Transport Association, meeting in Athens last week, spent much of their time debating how to deal with it.
"Adults Only." The international airlines would like to prevent the spread of in-flight entertainment because of its cost, but that does not seem to bother the American lines much. (Pakistan--oddly enough--is the only foreign country whose airline shows movies, but that is bound to change.) TWA spends up to $2,000,000 a year to lease its equipment and movies from Inflight Motion Pictures, which developed the idea. Installation of Continental's system, developed by California's Ampex Corp., will cost about $45,000 a plane. For its Astrovision, made by Sony of Japan, American Airlines pays $52,000 a plane; it puts out another $1,000,000 a year just to rent 52 movies. Pan American is studying an in-flight movie system that would cost about $5,000,000 to install in its jet fleet.
Cartoonists have had fun with the trend, showing stewardesses peddling Cracker Jacks or children being turned away from an "Adults Only" flight. But for a cost to the line of from $50 to $80 a flight, the movies earn their fare. TWA, for example, has increased its passenger business 28% so far this year, and the movies get at least partial credit. TWA has dropped its $1 movie charge in economy class, and most other lines will show their movies free to all classes. What the passenger gets is sound and pictures that are surprisingly clear, though the new systems still have some bugs to work out. (American's TV screens are thinly gold-plated to minimize interference with the plane's radar.) The individual earphones can be somewhat uncomfortable after a while, but better, foam-rubber headsets are being installed. The earplugs are sterilized and reused--when that is possible. Last year passengers stole about 50,000 from TWA.
Even a Marquee. Most stewardesses bless the movies, if only because they keep children quiet and adults in their seats. But there are problems. "I sometimes wish I could rip those plugs off their faces," complains an American Airlines stewardess. "I ask, 'Coffee, tea or milk?' and they say 'Yes.' " Another problem: as soon as the movie is over, passengers line up 20-deep for the plane's tiny toilets.
The airlines are clearly in show business to stay. Continental actually thought of putting live jazz combos on its planes before settling on its Golden Marquee system, and President Robert Six has hired a veteran movie-industry executive to be director of in-flight entertainment; he has also suggested that all the airlines get together and buy their own movie studio. Many of the movies in flight so far have been of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson genre, but Inflight Motion Pictures has bought the rights to make movies based on the Bulldog Drummond series, also plans to produce TV-length films for short flights and resale to the networks.
Now the railroads want aboard, and Inflight has formed a wholly owned subsidiary called Intransit Motion Pictures to handle the expanding business. At least four railroads are already deep in negotiations. Next month the Baltimore & Ohio will become the first to show movies regularly on the rails: it will introduce movies in the dining car and in a special coach on its Baltimore-Chicago and Baltimore-St. Louis runs. Each evening the program will be announced on lighted marquees above train gates at major railroad stations along the route.
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