As you may recall, I went on my pilgrimage to Miami last month. Silly, forgetful me has neglected to stick with tradition, however, and talk about the quality of BA’s in-flight entertainment – just so budding travellers know whether to pack their iPods, books, etc or to sit back and relax.
What kind of entertainment you get on a BA flight across the Atlantic very much depends on what kind of entertainment system you get. If you’re lucky, you’ll get the touch-screen system, as I did on the way over. On the way back, however, I got the regular handset driven system. The content on both systems is pretty similar, although the handset version has a little less, but the touch-screen system gives you on-demand content, while the handset system works on the more traditional rotation system, with every channel repeating the same content every couple of hours or so. The on-demand content is higher quality as well, since it’s streamed from digitised content rather than than played from a VHS.
Viewing choice was very wide, with a dozen or so channels of movies and TV shows. It was, perhaps, a little highbrow though. Seriously. There were very few blockbusters, just a load of British independent movies as well as more cerebral stuff like Children of Men; similar wrist-slitting opportunities were afforded by The Pursuit of Happyness. The TV channels were similarly populated, with things like Steven Fry’s documentary on manic depression and Louis Theroux’s look at the dismal results of gambling in Vegas being the main draws, although there were episodes of Friends and Peep Show among others on the comedy channel to avoid a severe death toll each flight.
At the moment, I’d rate the touchscreen version of the BA system the best in-flight entertainment system I’ve come across so far; the handset version is a bit below the standard set by Virgin Atlantic’s, though. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell in advance which one you’re going to get, so don’t be afraid to fill up your iPod with some movies before you go.