flydubai To Be Launch Customer of Revolutionary New In-Flight Entertainment System from Lumexis

The deal, announced at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg today, is for 44 flydubai B737-800NGs, the first of which is due to arrive in October 2010.

flydubai CEO, Ghaith Al Ghaith, explained why the low cost carrier had taken the step of investing in the new IFE system from Lumexis: “In-flight entertainment is very popular with passengers, but the traditional systems were prohibitively expensive for us as a low cost carrier. The Lumexis FTTS touch screen system offers us a flexible, high quality and innovative IFE option at a fraction of the normal cost.

“The FTTS system from Lumexis is revolutionary because it uses fibre optics rather than traditional copper piping. This significantly reduces the cost of the system overall, and makes it far lighter than other IFEs in use today. Any reduction in weight reduces our fuel costs and therefore ensures we can keep our ticket prices low.

“The Lumexis FTTS IFE is incredibly flexible and we are working closely with Lumexis to develop the system to reflect the flydubai model. flydubai is all about reducing complexity and offering our passengers choice. Our IFE will be available as an optional extra in the way that baggage and meals are. Passengers, travelling on flydubai aircraft fitted with the FTTS system, will have the ability to choose different parts of the system depending on their preference and how much they want to spend, and as flydubai likes to do things differently, we plan to offer functionality on our IFE system that other airlines traditionally don’t have.”

Doug Cline, CEO of Lumexis, said: “Lumexis is privileged to be partnered with such a forward thinking and innovative carrier. As the launch customer for our second generation of FTTS, flydubai demanded not only extremely low cost-of-ownership, but most importantly, the highest reliability and performance to ensure uninterrupted service and full passenger satisfaction.”

Since November 2009 when Lumexis announced they had contracted with an unnamed Boeing 737 operator as the launch customer, the identity of the airline has been the object of intense industry speculation. Few observers had expected the answer to be a low cost carrier.  But as Cline explained, “While it provides unmatched delivery capacity, the unique FTTS fiber optic network is so efficient that the installed system is half the cost and weight of earlier generation, copper-based systems. As a result, the latest passenger-pleasing, revenue-producing services can be offered on board the most cost-competitive airline.”