February 20, 2008 – TWO of the leading handheld IFE providers are looking on nervously as premium-only carriers Eos and Silverjet go head-to-head in a battle that could leave only one of them standing.

US-based Eos carries handhelds from IMS on its existing service between New York JFK and London Stansted, while Britain’s Silverjet offers the Mezzo turnkey IFE service on the Boeing 767s it operates from London Luton to New York Newark and Dubai. Following the recent failure of premium-only operator MAXjet, which included digEcor digEplayers in its product before switching late in life to e.Digital and its eVU, there must be fingers crossed at IMS and Mezzo as Eos gets ready to go head-to-head with Silverjet on its two main routes.

Entering service in 2005, Eos initially had the premium-only market to itself. The company now seems intent on restoring that state of affairs, announcing plans to start daily services from New York Newark to Stansted in May and from Stansted to Dubai in July.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Eos is aiming to land a knock-out blow on Silverjet, which reported a load factor of just 54 per cent for January, and then suffered the disappointment of seeing a potential £10 million equity injection slip through its fingers.

Last November the UK carrier announced that it had secured a convertible loan worth £10 million from Reuben Brothers, an investment company with extensive property interests. The lender had an option to convert the loan into Silverjet shares but announced last week that it would not now do so. The loan is due for repayment by December of next year.

Silverjet is putting a brave face on the situation. “Based on bookings to date, we are highly confident that our February load factor will exceed 60 per cent at an increased yield,” chief executive Lawrence Hunt said last week. “Forward bookings beyond February continue to be strong.”

Eos boss Jack Williams said that passengers were “eagerly anticipating” the introduction of the planned Newark-Stansted service, while the airline’s many Middle Eastern customers were a “perfect fit” for the Dubai offering.