Comments on: Experiencing Continental’s DIRECTV from Seattle, WA to Houston, TX

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:05:46 +0000

I agree with Allexsa. On my flight yesterday perhaps 3 of the 150 people on board were watching, while everyone else in coach had the directv ad asking to swipe their card, or a blank screen (those like me who figured out how to shut the d*mn thing off. I really miss not having music for free; this seems like the bare minimum that should be offered to all passengers all the time. As someone else pointed out, the $6 applies whether it’s a 90-min flight or 6 hours, so why can’t they adjust the price? I just sit there on the plane I try to figure out how many people like me are being ticked off by the hard sell of this system. For the $18 that they collected on my flight, they could have charged all of us 15 cents to and given it to us all ‘for free’!!

By: Allexsa

Allexsa — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 07:14:10 +0000

I just flew on Continental from San Antonio to Philadelphia with a stop in Houston and had Directv in all the flights which I really wish I didn’t have. The only good thing: you get fread headphones that you can keep…
I was actually a little taken aback with the Directv thing because you are basically PAYING to watch NORMAL tv with ADVERTISING as well as REGULAR programming! If you think about it, the cost per day is huge! This is a great thing for Continental business but not so much for its customers, here’s why:
Like many other airlines, and still in flights where Directv isn’t available, you get to watch a pretty recent movie that hasn’t yet been released on DVD (or maybe has only just started to), and you get a very limited number of ads. Sure, in some cases, if you don’t have earphones, you might need to purchase a set for 3 dollars, but you could still use your own. Sure, Directv allows you the choice of channel to choose from, but seriously? 6 dollars? No matter how long your flight is?
If they really want to make it customercentric, they should add an option to watch a preselected movie, so that more people can take advantage of the little screen in front of them instead of feeling cheated for having to pay for yet another thing that used to be included in flight. The installation of the little screens is already a sunk cost, they might as well use them to help boost their image and give their customers the impression that they are getting a little extra oomph, not just an extra option to watch advertising for which they have to pay.
I am personally a fan of Air France. They also have the little screens for all coach passengers with a choice of channels to choose from and little games and you don’t have to pay for them. It made a big impact on the brand image I have on them as well as with Continental and their cheap way of coning customers and making a cheap buck from directv, but that’s just my marketer’s perspective.

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By: Tony Dominguez

Tony Dominguez — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 06:36:42 +0000

Flew on the IAH-BOS leg and back and both of the 737-800s had DirecTV installed on them. First was a evening flight, the return being a day time flight. I DID find that they finally had updated the system to include the safety briefing on their monitors. The F/A just stands there with nothing to do now really. On the flight to Boston we were flying thru remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine so the signal god pixellated for a bit but once we popped up above the clouds everything was peachy. Still no music selection available but most people have their iPods/iPhone/MP3 players anyways for that. The return flight was on Saturday so we did have college football on. The flight was also on 9/11 so a lot of the History/Discovery channels were running 9/11 related shows on them… which I figured wasn’t really appropriate to watch on a plane. So I spent most of my time channel surfing between Back to the Future and the Military channel. All in all it makes flights >3 hrs very bearable and painless. I just wonder what’s going to happen when Continental merges with United :\

By: Inga Chisnall

Inga Chisnall — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:29:01 +0000

I had to read your post twice to get the full impact of it. I appreciate reading what you have to say. It’s unfortunate that more people do not understand the benefits of coaching. Keep up the good work.

By: Santiago Yancik

Santiago Yancik — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:38:47 +0000

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By: admin

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:51:26 +0000

I hear you.

By: admin

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:50:53 +0000

I have not flown one since this flight. I missed on this Friday as it was going to Newark from West Palm Beach, FL (PBI).

By: LifeFromAbove

LifeFromAbove — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:37:13 +0000

I really enjoy having the opportunity to watch live tv on my flight.

It’s definitely time sensitive as on late night flights you’re stuck with infomercials.

I’m usually onboard during the weekends and like the option to watch a football game in the air.

Here’s to a wifi option on Continental.

Safe travels

By: rs

rs — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:53:49 +0000

The DirectTV is kind of meh. I don’t watch much TV at home so I would rather watch nothing than dig around and choose what I want to watch. Flying on a plane is one of the times I’d prefer to be told what to watch. I have done DirectTV in coach (once) and in first (many). I like the movies, but don’t like the no-pause during announcement feature. I also (like others around me) don’t like the lack of music programming.