CHICAGO — At this year’s annual Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, United Airlines was awarded the Crystal Cabin Award for Inflight Entertainment and Connectivity for its new onboard entertainment interface, which recently debuted on the airline’s 787-10 Dreamliner fleet. The highly coveted award, which is the standard by which airlines, manufacturers, suppliers and design and engineering firms are judged, recognized the efforts of United and its partners at Panasonic Avionics to provide customers with what is the most accessible airline entertainment system in the world.
“Accessible and relevant inflight entertainment plays a major role in customers enjoying their flying experience and we wanted to create a system that all United customers could enjoy, including customers who have varying vision, hearing or mobility requirements,” said Toby Enqvist, senior vice president of customers at United. “Together with Panasonic, we spent three years building a system that is truly inclusive, and we look forward to adding it to more aircraft soon.”
This new system offers the world’s most extensive suite of accessibility features on seatback entertainment, which accommodates any level of vision, as well as provides support for customers with hearing and mobility issues. These features include:
Text-to-speech with reading granularity options
Customizable voice volume, speed and pitch
Explore by touch features including screen magnification, customizable text size, high contrast text options, color correction options and color inversion options
Custom messaging tailored for customers with hearing disabilities
Additional navigation options for mobility impaired passengers who are unable to swipe or use handset features
The system also provides the following enhancements that improve the overall experience for all customers:
Split screen capabilities that allow customers to watch a movie and view the flight map simultaneously
A relax mode that lets customers customize a selection of soothing videos and relaxing audio playlists
Movie and television recommendations based on remaining flight time, previously watched content and movies and shows that have been added to a customer’s favorites list
United also won the Onboard Hospitality Award for Best Use of Onboard Technology for the seatback entertainment system. The carrier expects to add this award-winning entertainment system to other aircraft beginning later this year. For more information on the Crystal Cabin awards, visit http://www.crystal-cabin-award.com/cca-news-realeases/article/honoring-8-top-innovations-for-air-travel.html.
Every customer. Every flight. Every day.
In 2019, United is focusing more than ever on its commitment to its customers, looking at every aspect of its business to ensure that the carrier keeps customers’ best interests at the heart of its service. In addition to today’s announcement, United recently announced that luxury skincare line Sunday Riley will make products exclusively for United customers to experience in amenity kits, released a re-imagined version of the most downloaded app in the airline industry and made DIRECTV free for every passenger on 211 aircraft, offering more than 100 channels on seat back monitors on more than 30,000 seats.
About United
United’s shared purpose is “Connecting People. Uniting the World.” We are more focused than ever on our commitment to customers through a series of innovations and improvements designed to help build a great experience: Every customer. Every flight. Every day. Together, United Airlines and United Express operate approximately 4,800 flights a day to 353 airports across five continents. In 2018, United and United Express operated more than 1.7 million flights carrying more than 158 million customers. United is proud to have the world’s most comprehensive route network, including U.S. mainland hubs in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. United operates 770 mainline aircraft and the airline’s United Express carriers operate 559 regional aircraft. United is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides service to 193 countries via 28 member airlines. For more information, visit united.com, follow @United on Twitter and Instagram or connect on Facebook. The common stock of United’s parent, United Continental Holdings, Inc., is traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol “UAL”.
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