Dubai low-cost airline flydubai signed an agreement making it the launch customer of the "Fiber To The Screen" (FTTS) in-flight entertainment (IFE) system from Lumexis, of Irvine, Calif. The deal, announced Tuesday at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, is for 44 flydubai B737-800NGs, the first of which is due to arrive in October 2010.
"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," said flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith. "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."