September 26, 2005 – AT A WAEA show fascinated by the toings and froings of the handheld IFE players, Panasonic Avionics pulled off the notable trick of hitting the headlines not only with its eXpress portable but also with some new developments for its X-series (eFX, eX2) embedded systems.

The Japanese giant unveiled Mexicana Airlines as its launch customer for express at last week’s event in Hamburg. At the same time it stayed abreast of the rapidly developing connectivity scene with two announcements about new communications capabilities for its in-seat systems.

Mexicana Airlines has signed a letter of intent to buy what Panasonic calls “a large quantity” of eXpresses for use from the first quarter of next year in business class across its fleet and on most flights over three hours in length. Passengers will also be offered Panasonic noise-cancelling headsets.

With a 7in high-definition screen, 8hr battery and multi-language menus, eXpress will offer Mexicana passengers first-run Hollywood films, high-quality audio with playlists, games, regional short-subject programming and custom airline programming.

Panasonic will back up the airline’s eXpress offering with product support, content provision, pay-per-view billing and reconciliation, and logistics, including usage tracking.

Measuring 9.6in x 4.6in x 2.0in and weighing 1.5kg with battery, eXpress has a 40Gb hard disc and built-in credit-card reader. Supported formats are MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and WMV (video), and MP3 and WMA (audio). Three power options are offered: battery only, external power only (15V DC or 110V AC), and battery and external (15V DC or 110V AC).

Another significant option is IEEE 802.11a, b and g wireless, with provision for upgrade to future technologies such as the more capacious 802.11n. Potential applications include connectivity and inflight downloading of new content delivered by satellite or terrestrial broadband.

Connectivity-consciousness was one of the main themes of the Panasonic presence in Hamburg. As well as announcing that it would integrate the AeroMobile onboard cellphone solution with its in-seat hardware, the company revealed a powerful new data communications interface for its X-series systems – the Passenger Communications Suite (PCS).

PCS is executed in software, allowing passengers to access the aircraft’s satellite or other air-ground communications system via the in-seat IFE provision. Passengers subscribing to email accounts such as Yahoo! Mail Plus can access inboxes and read, reply to, compose, forward and delete messages. They can also view buddy lists and send and receive Instant Messages through Yahoo, MSN and AIM Instant Messenger accounts. Users of text messaging can create a temporary onboard SMS account and send and receive replies to text messages. PCS also supports seat-to-seat instant messaging and chatrooms.

“As the next-generation satcoms systems become available and affordable, we expect passenger utilisation of PCS to be much higher than previously seen on our S3000 In-flight Communicator,” comments PCS product manager Erik Rehder.