On your long-haul trip home for the holidays, you will scrunch yourself into a too-narrow seat, fasten your seatbelt and probably turn on the screen in front of you.
At least half and sometimes as many as eight in 10 customers use that entertainment system, executives from the major domestic airlines say. And the top option, said Dominic Green, the director of in-flight entertainment at United, is movies.
“The people who aren’t engaging are basically on redeye flights coming back from Las Vegas or they are children under 2,” said Ekrem Dimbiloglu, a managing director for customer experience at Delta.
Delta has 165,000 screens on 840 jets. United has 500 planes equipped with seat-back screens and more are being added every day. That means that airlines, as Green likes to say, are some of the largest “cinemas in the sky.”
But who determines what you get to see while stuck in a metal tube at 35,000 feet? And how do they choose? We talked to the people in charge to find out.
Who decides which movies are available?
Airlines mostly have teams that help curate the entertainment. At Southwest, Kennedy Wilson is, as she put it, “a team of one.” Dimbiloglu leads a team of four at Delta, some of whom attend film festivals. Green’s team has quadrupled in recent years from two to eight.
The airlines also partner with content service providers — akin to middlemen — that offer recommendations and they sometimes seek additional help when putting together a collection for, say, or Hispanic Heritage Month, or trying to program for an international flight.
On a cross-country trip in October, Delta offered a Halloween collection that included “Beetlejuice” and “The Conjuring.” There was also a category called Cozy Family Fall that featured “Coco” and “Remember the Titans.”
Green said United worked with more than 100 content providers to fill out its roster of movies, TV series, music and podcasts. American Airlines carries more than 1,500 titles overall and an average of 500 movies, said Kim Cisek, the vice president of customer experience.
How are the movies selected?
The airlines say they are data-driven. They can see which movies we are watching and how long we are watching them for.
Some airlines also track how shows are performing on external streaming platforms that viewers use at home and consider how titles are being received in different markets and among particular demographics. Cisek said American Airlines gathers insights from flight attendants, too.
And customers famously love giving feedback. Many fill out satisfaction surveys, and more than a few feel compelled to tweet or write in with a specific request — or complaint.
But data cannot tell you everything. Only humans know that “Inside Out” and “Inside Out 2” are very different movies. Or that tennis feels kind of hot right now. (See “Challengers.”)
Green said his team and their colleagues who run social media noted the buzz around a forthcoming “Devil Wears Prada” sequel. So they put the original “Devil Wears Prada” on board, even though it is more than 20 years old, and it performed well.
“Art and science,” Green said.
How often do the movies change?
Executives say they rotate and evaluate movies regularly to keep their offerings fresh. For example, American Airlines adds roughly 200 titles every month.
Is it just me, or are there more niche categories now?
As the number of offerings has ballooned into the hundreds, airlines have increasingly sought to categorize them. They sometimes lean on internal employee resource groups to help curate selections for Black History Month and International Women’s Day. Or, as was the case at Southwest, they create a Ryan Reynolds category because they have a lot of Ryan Reynolds movies and “that’s just fun,” Wilson said.
Some airlines are getting even more personalized. United tracks usage and viewership (responsibly, it says) and considers the information and preferences customers share in their profiles. “If they tell us they’re really into action movies,” Green said, “we can take them straight into that kind of action movie collection.”
Delta has recently begun rolling out a way to sync up its in-flight entrainment system with customers’ airline membership accounts so that they can interact with the system like they would with Netflix. Many customers can now restart a movie right where they left off on their last trip and get smarter recommendations based on what they have already watched. “We’re trying to bring that living room experience to you in the air,” Dimbiloglu said.
At least five generations are flying in this moment, Cisek said. “So it’s really important that we have something for everyone.”
Does ‘Oppenheimer’ cost the same as ‘Sleepless in Seattle?’
Definitely not. (Though none of the airline representatives would say how much they spend on movies or specify how much different titles cost.)
Airlines work with studios and content service providers to procure the movies they want to show. But the budget is not unlimited, and curation teams must decide what will give them the best bang for their buck. For instance, Southwest passed on “Top Gun: Maverick,” Wilson said, even though she believed it would be popular.
Airlines also must contend with licensing windows. It will be months before “Wicked,” in theaters now, can be shown on planes. And once they get it, they may have it for only six months or a year at a time.
What types of movies do people like to watch?
“The golden rule is there is no kind of golden rule,” Green said.
But airline executives have learned a thing or two about what customers seem to like.
Nostalgic comfort and comedy
Dimbiloglu estimated that 40 percent of Delta’s customers are millennials, and many of them seem interested in shows that took off when they were growing up. “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “The Office” and “Friends” are television series, not movies, but they perform really well on Delta, he said.
“The Office” is also popular on American Airlines, Cisek said, as is “Abbott Elementary.” She highlighted comedy series as especially winning. “Customers are looking for ways to have an enjoyable flight and just kind of turn off,” she said.
The ‘airline movie’
Multiple executives independently pointed to the same movie that they said had been popular among customers for years: “Crazy Rich Asians.” Those that removed the title said they received complaints.
“It’s an airline movie,” Dimbiloglu said. “A positive, uplifting movie that has a lot of travel associated with it, that has adventure associated with it and that puts you in a good mood.”
Like the characters in a good airline movie, he said, most of the people on a plane are going somewhere and want to be happy when they get there.
The ‘unicorn’
“There’s always a unicorn,” Wilson said, “one movie that you’re like, ‘Oh, sure, we’ll put it on board,” and to everyone’s surprise, “it just astronomically performs.”
For her, the best example of a unicorn was “Cats.” People know the musical, she said, and the movie was heavily advertised before it was released in 2019. But the film was skewered after audiences actually got to see it and it flopped at the box office.
Nonetheless, “Cats” turned out to be one of Southwest’s top performing movies. “House of Gucci” stole that title soon after.
It all sort of makes sense to Wilson. Time in the air is burden-free, she said, and those “found hours” let you try something new or sneak in something you’ve secretly wanted to watch.
Delta executives were hardly surprised that “Barbie” found a wide audience. But when they looked closer, they saw something unexpected: Male business travelers were among its highest viewers.
“There’s no laws. Watching a movie in-flight, you’re already in a tube,” Wilson said. “You’re already going to be in there for a certain amount of time. So they see a movie that they wouldn’t buy a ticket for.”
The post How Airlines Pick the Movies on Your Flights appeared first on New York Times.
