BA plane diverts

[Garry Russell]

Is this really news worthy??? :@

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7666236.stm

Garry

[Tomliner]

Hi Garry.Fear of litigation and lawyers is the reason.I have a solution to this problem.Shoot the fu!!ing lawyers.Anyone who cares to contribute to the cost of the ammunition will find that it's a good investment.I'm sure that I' m getting softer as I get older. :roll: EricT

[Garry Russell]

I can understand the diversion due to the possibilty of further fault/fire risk

But headline news???

Why not take out all the inflight entertainment......save weight/fuel/pollution and, it would seem, fire risk

Travel is about getting there

Garry

[Filonian]

Tut! Tut! Garry, would you deprive them of Coronation Street & East Enders?

Graham

[Garry Russell]

Just put a 12 inch BW in the corner for them to catch up on the latest soaps

Providing someone brings a tape along

Garry

[speedbird591]

I'm sure the airlines would love to scrap the IFE systems. They are incredibly heavy, complicated and unreliable. But imagine offering every passenger a paperback instead - you'd be bankrupt in a week!

The system fitted to the BA747s (when I was working them) was fairly basic but reliable, but the one fitted to the 777s was a nightmare. I spent most of my time rebooting the system, apologising, reseating and writing reports. After the seat belt sign went off, I'd just wait in my office for the phone to ring and I'd know it was for my first service call!

Since the Swissair crash a few years back caused by wiring in the IFE system, 777 crews are very wary about the smell of burning and there have been incidents before, so I can understand the crew's reaction. I agree that the diversion probably didn't warrant the media attention, but perhaps the underlying problem does!

Ian

[Garry Russell]

Indeed Ian..perhaps though if they all did it

I fully agree with the diversion as I mentioned above there could be an underlying further problem and there is nothing worse than an in flight fire.

But it is the full blown media attention that bothers me as if there were not more important issues we need to know about. :@

Garry

[SkippyBing]

I'm not sure if it's exactly full blown media attention, the Telegraph had a small piece next to several pages on the Financial Apocalypse. The problem with the BBC website is they seem to have a minimum length for articles which may give you the impression it's higher profile than it's intended to be.

[hobby]

Amazing. During 1964-79 I spent many hours flying as a passenger the length and breadth of the UK without any entertainment system to hand other than a British Cal breakfast or a BA afternoon tea, G&T etc was available.

With many people now seemingly isolated in the worlds of laptops and/or ipods why can't airlines cast out this once useful markreting tool called IFE? Just let all the pax continue to use laptops and ipods - at least they would be seeing whatever they wished and the airline would not be required to pay for endless inflight tapes and the maintenace of that IFE equipment.

[SkippyBing]

During 1964-79 I spent many hours flying as a passenger the length and breadth of the UK

To be fair I don't think you get in flight entertainment on internal flights today and I've done several internal flights in the US that didn't have it either. I think any airline removing it for long haul international trips would probably soon see punters voting with their feet though, the one trans-Atlantic flight I did without it was hellish if only because of other people being bored and frustrated.