The Holy Grail would be to show the Ashes Tests or a cup final live - that's not there yet, but it will come.". £120... Spend a night at the Lowndes Hotel (020-7823 1234; www.lowndeshotel ) in London any Friday, Saturday or Sunday till 15 December. "We'll see increasing levels of personalisation," said Mr McBain.
"That has important implications for airline marketing as it will allow personal profiling of your customers."People will also be able to surf the web and work at their seat. Why do they do it? People are on long flights in a confined space - it's a good way to pass the time and keep people relaxed and entertained."Spafax anticipates significant changes in the world of in-flight entertainment. "Airlines move with the times but there's less of the 'me-too' approach than there was These systems are multi-million-pound propositions. "People love a flutter but if there's a technical hitch at 30,000 feet when the passenger is £8,000 up you've got something of a challenge."Ryanair's move has highlighted the importance of in-flight entertainment to the airlines' efforts to persuade passengers to fly with them. Emirates, which won the 2005 Skytrax best airline entertainment award, has recently launched ICE, a system with more than 500 channels, every No 1 musical hit since 1952 and the ability to send text and email messages.And although the airline eschews gambling, it has been quick to tap into the predilection of its passengers for games; its trivia quiz is hugely popular and allows passengers to see on their screen where competitors are sitting."In-flight entertainment has moved up the list of important things that passengers take into account, but it remains one of a matrix of many things," said Mr McBain. Instead, a croupier offers gambling lessons for Upper Class passengers on the airline's Las Vegas route.Industry experts are ambivalent about gambling. "An airline would have to be wary about what kind of losses a customer could sustain and still maintain a relationship with it," said Niall McBain, chief executive officer of Spafax, which develops in-flight entertainment systems for several airlines, including BA, Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
And the huge DNA-cluster of contradictions from which Peel's identity was constructed (public school educated man of the people, counter-cultural sage and establishment figure, millionaire ally of struggling musicians, tireless enthusiast and unrepentant curmudgeon) finds an aptly perplexing reflection in this fragmentary and multi-faceted volume.After a suitably tender introduction from his four children, the first - Peel-penned - section of the book rather suffers from its author's long years of preparatory hard labour at the coalface of his own mythology. Not exactly the best thing depuis la baguette.k.bassett independent.co.uk To 14 January, 0870 950 0902. A spokeswoman for BA said gambling would be incompatible with the "family-oriented" image of the airline's world traveller entertainment system.Virgin Atlantic has explored gambling, but has been constrained by strict rules in the United States that forbid such activities in its airspace. Emirates and British Airways both said they would not consider such a move. Barely 15 years have passed since planes were fitted with seat-back TV screens.
