Valerian Ho looks back at yesterday’s travel. This month, it's 1988 and the first seat-back TV
Three airlines were competing to be the first to introduce seat-back TVs in 1988. In the end, Northwest Airlines beat British Airways and Qantas to it.
Airvision, a joint venture between Warner Brothers and Philips, teamed up with the US carrier (which has since been absorbed into Delta Air Lines) to install 116 three-inch colour screens in business class and part of economy on one of its B747s.
The new technology debuted on the Detroit-Tokyo route, with six closed-circuit channels broadcasting films, cartoons, news, documentaries and music videos played via video cassette.
Northwest hadn’t been sure how customers would react. In fact, it anticipated possible complaints, especially from those who were not using their television but were disturbed by light emitted from their neighbour’s.
Surveys undertaken by both the airline and Warner Brothers, however, came back with positive responses – about 70 per cent of passengers said they preferred individual TVs to overhead screens, and the same percentage said they were more likely to fly on airlines that had such devices.
