e.Digital

SriLankan has emerged the first publicly-announced launch customer of IMS' new RAVE in-flight entertainment system, as part of a broader refurbishment of its widebody fleet following an in-depth Skytrax study.

Interestingly, SriLankan has picked a new lie-flat bed from Aviointeriors - the same firm that displayed those saddle seats at the most recent APEX show.

RAVE is a seat-centric platform that has won rave reviews ever since it was unveiled at the WAEA - now APEX - show in Palm Springs, California last year.

Key quote from the Airline Industry Review:

"The airline will also be switching to the RAVE IFE system by IMS, on these aircraft. RAVE is an embeddable IFE and is a self-contained system thus not requiring heavy servers. The system is built using only two major LRUs compared to the ten or more by traditional IFE. The self-contained nature of the product means that it will not depend on a server - unlike traditional IFEs - and deliver a full AVOD experience to the passenger. RAVE is yet another contender of the Next Generation IFEs and is fighting for a share with others like Lumexis."

Today's announcement means that a new breed of IFE firms are officially making their mark in the sector (will they give Panasonic and Thales a true run for their money?)

Meanwhile, I've got a feeling there is an interesting back-story to SriLankan's decision. The carrier in June said it was tapping e.Digital for new touch-screen portable IFE, but a few months later e.digital announced it was suspending development of its next gen device. What was never clear, however, was where SriLankan intended to deploy the units.

In any case, a big congrats to IMS for securing a launch customer for RAVE and injecting further competition into the IFE space.