Frontier Airlines to Offer DirecTV

[Steve Mehs]

Frontier Airlines said that it signed a letter of intent with LiveTV to customize the seats in its fleet with DirecTV satellite programming.

Frontier and LiveTV expect to sign a definitive purchase and services agreement for DirecTV programming by July 1.

The new DirecTV service will enable customers to choose from 24 channels of real-time DirecTV Airbourne programming from their individual seat. Programming includes news, business, sports, leisure, children's and general DirecTV programming.

From SkyReport (http://www.skyreport.com) (Used with Permission)

[Karl Foster]

I have flown on JetBlue which also offers Directv in the seatbacks. It is AWESOME. It makes a long flight seem much shorter. The channels (as far as I can remember) were:

History Channel
Discovery Channel
Boomerang
Cartoon Network
CNN
Animal Planet
ESPN
ESPN News
TLC

and others that I simply can't remember (it's hell getting old)

[JAYPB]

Out of curiousity, how do you control the channels? Does that mean that each seatback/tv has it's own receiver ? I've always wondered about that....must be some CRAZY multi-plex on each plane :D

[Karl Foster]

Each seat has it's own monitor, with controls on the armrest. You have to have headphones to hear anything.

The JetBlue system also has a station which shows where the plane is in relationship to a US map, the altitude, flight path, etc. It is way cool.

[James_F]

Doesn't the dish fall off the plane? :D

[RJS1111111]

Originally posted by James_F
Doesn't the dish fall off the plane? :D

But, seriously, it's probably inside the fuselage, under
some kind of lexan or fiberglass housing. It must have
a tracking mechanism as well. You can get that sort
of thing (mainly for marine use) for several thousand $'s.

[FTA Michael]

I couldn't find this list last week, so in case anyone else cares, here's the DirecTV channel lineup that Frontier had this week (at $5 per flight segment, so don't get too worried about how much the equipment cost):

A&E
Animal Planet
Boomerang
CNBC
CNN Headline News
Court TV
Discovery
Discovery Kids
ESPN
ESPN 2
ESPN Classic
ESPNews
Food Network
Game Show Network
HGTV
History Channel
MSNBC
Nickelodeon
Telemundo
TLC
Travel Channel
TV Land
VH1 Classic
Weather Channel
WNBC (New York)

That's 25 channels, but the inflight magazine advertised "24 live channels". Weird, huh?

[Phil T]

I flew on a Frontier filight in August that had the service. It was pretty cool. It is a $5.00 additional charge. The thing I liked best was the channel that shows the map, altitude and airspeed of where you are. If you don't pay the extra $5.00, this is the only channel you get. I am flying Frontier again next week (DEN - IND). This time I only want the one channel, so I won't pay the fee. :)

BTW: 39,000 feet at 575 MPH watching WNBC is cool. (I wonder if they had to get wavers) :D

[MedMech]

I was watching a show about private jets which featured Mark Cubans Gulfstream 4. One of the features was a Directv antenna that he paid Honeywell some ungodly amount of money to develop so he could watch live tv in his jet.

They showed the Antenna it's a flat disc like thing that is mounted on top of the fuselage.

[JAYPB]

Heresy! No PBS Kids included ?!?!

My kids would revolt! :D