In-Flight Map Gets a Big Makeover
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What headlines open this Money Briefing and set the context for the episode?
With your Money Briefing, I'm Charlie Turner in New York for The Wall Street Journal. Those in-flight maps you watch on the backs of airplane seats are getting a real makeover, including much more detail. The Journal's middle seat columnist Scott McCartney joins us in a moment. First, here are some money headlines. Those interested in investing in major airlines may want to fly United Continental. The carrier said its first quarter profit doubled from a year earlier, and a key sales metric, revenue adjusted for passengers, seats, and miles traveled, also rose. The Wall Street Journal's hurt on the street says United hasn't had to cut ticket prices, even though it's added more seats by expanding its flight network.
United has done this by funneling traffic into key airports such as Denver and Houston. However, Heard on the Street says United's domestic network remains outgunned, particularly by Delta Airlines, which is partly why United's stock has been trading at a discount. Heard on the Street columnist Dan Gallagher says Intel made the right call by deciding to effectively exit the business of making modem chips for smartphones. It's a market that Intel had been playing catch-up for years, and its iPhone business had always lost money. Intel plans to fulfill its contracts for current generations of those processors, but it will halt plans to build chips based on the incoming 5G wireless standard. The news happened to come just hours after Apple, Intel's largest modem customer, settled a long-running legal dispute with Qualcomm, Intel's largest modem rival.
What is changing about in-flight maps and why does it matter to passengers?
Philadelphia Fed Bank President Patrick Harker is sticking with his view that the Federal Reserve may be able to raise interest rates two more times over the next couple of years. Mr. Harker says that with a strong labor market, muted inflation, sustained moderate growth, and what he calls the penumbra of uncertainty, he continues to be in wait-and-see mode, and his outlook for rates remains at most one hike for 2019 and one for 2020. Mr. Harker is not currently a voting member of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. In the Fed's March forecast, the central bank penciled in no rate hikes for the year as a whole. Still ahead, the in-flight map makeover.
If you're like me, when you fly, you spend a lot of time looking at the in-flight map on the seat back in front of you. Well, there's good news. The in-flight tracker is getting a technological makeover. It'll have plenty of other features besides your location, altitude, airspeed, and distance traveled. Here to tell us more is The Wall Street Journal's middle seat columnist, Scott McCartney. Scott, the in-flight map is a great way to pass part of the time if you're flying from New York to L.A. It helps the flight go faster, at least for me. Tell us about some of the new features that the map manufacturers are adding to the trackers.
Which new interactive features will let passengers buy tickets and local attractions in-flight?
Well, it's going to be very interesting and somewhat predictable for people who are used to dealing with airlines these days. Realizing that the map is the number one use of in-flight entertainment, it's where travelers' eyeballs are, where they're pointing and touching the screen. The map makers and airlines are looking for ways to start making money from that. And so a lot of the new features will have to do with giving you options to purchase things. So say you're going to Los Angeles and you can zoom in on Anaheim and there will be a list of, say, that you're interested in going to Disneyland and the 10 most popular rides at Disneyland and things like that, all kinds of. of lists and rankings from social media.
And then if you want to buy Disneyland tickets or tickets to all kinds of other attractions in your destination, then you'll have that option with the map. And for a lot of people, they plan a trip, they book their airline tickets, a hotel, maybe a rental car, maybe not. And then when they get there, they start looking at theater tickets or amusements or boat rides or all kinds of things to do.
How will enriched map content provide encyclopedic details and countdowns like 'dinner in 20 minutes'?
So the thought is the map can become a portal to selling all that kind of stuff.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What headlines open this Money Briefing and set the context for the episode?
0:06–1:30
2
What is changing about in-flight maps and why does it matter to passengers?
1:30–2:48
3
Which new interactive features will let passengers buy tickets and local attractions in-flight?
2:48–4:06
4
How will enriched map content provide encyclopedic details and countdowns like 'dinner in 20 minutes'?
4:06–6:06
5
What visual upgrades are companies like Panasonic using to render mountains and cockpit views?
6:06–7:27
6
Which current products already offer advanced map features and where are they flying now?
7:27–8:45
7
How are flight-tracking services like Flightradar24 and future camera feeds enhancing the in-flight experience?
8:45–9:33
Speakers
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