Samsung Bringing Galaxy Tab 10.1 Tablets To American Airlines Flights
Let's face it: air travel today just isn't what it once was. It's more of a chore than anything else, and it seems that every single airline is out to get you, the consumer. But every so often, those twenty terrible airline stories are broken up by something positive, and that's what we have here. Samsung Mobile has just landed a wild agreement that really helps the partner airline as much, if not more so, than Samsung themselves. The agreement is with American Airlines, and the deal involves Galaxy Tab 10.1 units on a plane. Samuel L. Jackson would certainly approve.
The deal aims to provide premium-class in-flight entertainment, and handing out dedicated Honeycomb tablets seems like the perfect upgrade from those dusty CRT monitors that still hang from the ceilings of many planes today. The airline plans to deploy 6,000 Tab 10.1 devices on "select flights" later this year. The tablets will replace the airline's current personal entertainment device in American's premium cabins on transcontinental flights between New York's JFK and Los Angeles, JFK and San Francisco, and Miami and Los Angeles served with 767-200 and 767-300 aircraft; international flights to and from Europe and South America served with 767-300 aircraft; and transcontinental flights departing from Boston to Los Angeles served with 757 aircraft.
That's a major move, and we suspect it's saving AA a bundle. Those in-headrest screens aren't cheap, nor are the systems they ship with. It's likely that tablets are more affordable, and to the user, more flexible. Interestingly, Samsung will be added "additional memory" to the AA tablets, making them special in yet another way. It's hard to know how these will be distributed, collected, and maintained, and it's even harder to know how late-breaking movies will be kept on the device, but we're looking forward to the next leap in in-flight infotainment. Gogo, and now the Tab 10.1? Flying may just be fun again.
The deal aims to provide premium-class in-flight entertainment, and handing out dedicated Honeycomb tablets seems like the perfect upgrade from those dusty CRT monitors that still hang from the ceilings of many planes today. The airline plans to deploy 6,000 Tab 10.1 devices on "select flights" later this year. The tablets will replace the airline's current personal entertainment device in American's premium cabins on transcontinental flights between New York's JFK and Los Angeles, JFK and San Francisco, and Miami and Los Angeles served with 767-200 and 767-300 aircraft; international flights to and from Europe and South America served with 767-300 aircraft; and transcontinental flights departing from Boston to Los Angeles served with 757 aircraft.
That's a major move, and we suspect it's saving AA a bundle. Those in-headrest screens aren't cheap, nor are the systems they ship with. It's likely that tablets are more affordable, and to the user, more flexible. Interestingly, Samsung will be added "additional memory" to the AA tablets, making them special in yet another way. It's hard to know how these will be distributed, collected, and maintained, and it's even harder to know how late-breaking movies will be kept on the device, but we're looking forward to the next leap in in-flight infotainment. Gogo, and now the Tab 10.1? Flying may just be fun again.
