In today's episode, we are delighted to present a unique and historic gathering of industry leaders – the three foremost seatback inflight entertainment providers, each represented by their distinguished product and technology visionaries.
Our topic today, accessibility for seatback in-flight entertainment systems. We delve into the challenges, the innovations, and the immense opportunities that lie ahead in making air travel more inclusive for all passengers. It's a conversation that I hope will not only inspire, educate, and inform but also help serve as a catalyst for a more inclusive future within the aviation sector.
Never before have these three providers converged on a single platform to deliberate, collaborate upon the critical importance of crafting and delivering inclusive products. This union on the show today is a testament to the evolving landscape of inflight entertainment and signifies a pivotal shift towards universal accessibility in aviation.
I’m joined by Andrew Masson, Vice President Product Management, Portfolio Management and Marketing from Panasonic Avionics Corporation; Ben Asmar, Vice President, Products and Strategy from Safran Passenger Innovations (SPI); and Tudy Bedou, Chief Technology Officer at Thales InFlyt Experience.
In the realm of innovation and progress, wisdom prevails in recognizing that building products for everyone, without exclusion, is the true path forward. So, prepare for an enriching discussion as we embark on an exploration of the inflight entertainment domain, unlocking its potential for collaboration like never before.
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This episode of On Your Flight Today is brought to you by IFECtiv, an inflight entertainment and connectivity consulting company. Dedicated to elevating the aviation industry's inflight entertainment products and experiences for airlines and suppliers. Visit www.IFECtiv.aero to learn more!
To sponsor an episode or advertise on the On Your Flight Today podcast, visit the show website: www.onyourflighttoday.com
www.onyourflighttoday.com
https://www.linkedin.com/company/onyourflighttoday
https://www.youtube.com/@onyourflighttoday
https://twitter.com/YourFlightToday
In today's episode, we are delighted to present a unique and historic gathering of industry leaders – the three foremost seatback inflight entertainment providers, each represented by their distinguished product and technology visionaries.
Our topic today, accessibility for seatback in-flight entertainment systems. We delve into the challenges, the innovations, and the immense opportunities that lie ahead in making air travel more inclusive for all passengers. It's a conversation that I hope will not only inspire, educate, and inform but also help serve as a catalyst for a more inclusive future within the aviation sector.
Never before have these three providers converged on a single platform to deliberate, collaborate upon the critical importance of crafting and delivering inclusive products. This union on the show today is a testament to the evolving landscape of inflight entertainment and signifies a pivotal shift towards universal accessibility in aviation.
I’m joined by Andrew Masson, Vice President Product Management, Portfolio Management and Marketing from Panasonic Avionics Corporation; Ben Asmar, Vice President, Products and Strategy from Safran Passenger Innovations (SPI); and Tudy Bedou, Chief Technology Officer at Thales InFlyt Experience.
In the realm of innovation and progress, wisdom prevails in recognizing that building products for everyone, without exclusion, is the true path forward. So, prepare for an enriching discussion as we embark on an exploration of the inflight entertainment domain, unlocking its potential for collaboration like never before.
---------------
This episode of On Your Flight Today is brought to you by IFECtiv, an inflight entertainment and connectivity consulting company. Dedicated to elevating the aviation industry's inflight entertainment products and experiences for airlines and suppliers. Visit www.IFECtiv.aero to learn more!
To sponsor an episode or advertise on the On Your Flight Today podcast, visit the show website: www.onyourflighttoday.com
www.onyourflighttoday.com
https://www.linkedin.com/company/onyourflighttoday
https://www.youtube.com/@onyourflighttoday
https://twitter.com/YourFlightToday
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. Even though it has been reviewed by a human, it may contain errors. Please review the audio for the episode and use that as the guide before quoting from this episode or transcript. This text may not be published online or distributed without written permission. Feel free to contact the team at ‘On your flight today’ with any questions.
On Your Flight Today – Season 2, Episode 1 – Accessible Skies: Titans of Seatback IFE in Collaborative Conversation
Live Date: October 2023
Host: Corinne Streichert
Guest: Andy Masson, Vice President, Product Management, Portfolio Management & Marketing – Panasonic Avionics Corporation; Ben Asmar, Vice President, Products & Strategy - Safran Passenger Innovations (SPI); Tudy Bedou, Chief Technology Officer – Thales InFlyt Experience.
{Introduction} In today's episode, we are delighted to present a unique and historic gathering of industry leaders – the three foremost seatback inflight entertainment providers, each represented by their distinguished product and technology visionaries.
Our topic today, accessibility for seatback in-flight entertainment systems. We delve into the challenges, the innovations, and the immense opportunities that lie ahead in making air travel more inclusive for all passengers. It's a conversation that I hope will not only inspire, educate, and inform but also help serve as a catalyst for a more inclusive future within the aviation sector.
Never before have these three providers converged on a single platform to deliberate, collaborate upon the critical importance of crafting and delivering inclusive products. This union on the show today is a testament to the evolving landscape of inflight entertainment and signifies a pivotal shift towards universal accessibility in aviation.
I’m joined by Andrew Masson, Vice President Product Management, Portfolio Management and Marketing from Panasonic Avionics Corporation; Ben Asmar, Vice President, Products and Strategy from Safran Passenger Innovations (SPI); and Tudy Bedou, Chief Technology Officer at Thales InFlyt Experience.
In the realm of innovation and progress, wisdom prevails in recognizing that building products for everyone, without exclusion, is the true path forward. So, prepare for an enriching discussion as we embark on an exploration of the inflight entertainment domain, unlocking its potential for collaboration like never before.
Corinne: Ben, Andy, Tudy, thank you for joining us. Really excited to have you on the show today. How are you all doing?
Tudy: Doing great.
Andy: Great. Thanks.
Ben: Yeah, very good. Thanks for having us, Corinne.
Corinne: We're really looking forward to talking about accessibility. There has been quite a bit of talk about it recently and over the years there has been some progress made, but I thought it would be a great idea to get the three big players in the seatback IFE market together and let's have a conversation. So, for our audience, I think what would be really great is that we kind of go around the room. Let's get an update from each of you on where you're at on your accessibility journey with respect to your hardware and software solutions, looking at what the main drivers have been of that strategy. So, kicking it off with Panasonic Avionics, Andy.
Andy: Thanks, Corinne. Yeah. So, we started our journey and bought our solution out about five years ago, partnership with United, one of our customers. Really looking at various areas of accessibility we wanted to bring to IFE, and these range from items like text-to-speech, which is very, very important for, you know, some of the consumers to high contrast ratio, color correction, color, inversion, etc, screen magnification. We really wanted to work with United to put ourselves in the, the seat of a consumer and you know, look what was going on. Um, you know, a lot of the solutions that we do, we were able to bring in from the consumer space. Obviously, there's a lot of work done in accessibility in the market there. Um, good solutions with, you know, Apple, with Android and some of those technology pieces that we're able to pull from. Uh, we have several customers now who come and work with us on this. And each time it's a journey, you know, bringing the customers along what they want to do. And it's probably helped that we've had that early, uh, that early integration piece with United, uh, to help frame, you know, this is what we've seen in the market so far. This is what we're seeing working, this is what we're seeing being used so much. And to really try and help hone those solutions. It's not one of those areas that I feel people want to compete on so much as they want to provide a solution for the passengers, for the consumers, because it's one of those important pieces for us.
Corinne: Safran Passenger Innovations and Thales have been working on some solutions. Thales does have some accessibility flying at the moment. But I guess over to Ben Asmar from Safran Passenger Innovations. Can you kind of share with us your journey to date and what's driving your strategy?
Ben: Yeah. So, so obviously we already have some accessibility features built into our product. I think they're fairly similar to what most people have. We have subtitles, closed captions. Some contrast ratio already, but frankly, we just thought that wasn't good enough. It really only addresses a small portion of the overall market where people have needs for accessible solutions. So really what we did is we started going down into a heavy research mode to determine, well, what is the need? Let's not think about what we can do to add to our existing product. But let's just ask the question from the ground up. What do people with various disabilities need to really interact with an in-flight entertainment solution in a much easier fashion or give them access that they have to the system where they couldn't previously access at all? So, where we went to is we decided to build a prototype, and the prototype consisted of an accessibility mode, which is actually a separate IFE interface altogether. So, it's actually something that the, the user customizes. It's based on their own individual needs, based on a series of questions that the system would ask them at the beginning and on the responses to those questions, then the system will adapt itself in that mode to allow the passenger to use it in a way that's comfortable and easy for them. So this is a little different to kind of where accessibility has been in the past, and we're really trying to drive to open up this to many more groups. So traditionally it's been focused on people with auditory and visual types of disabilities. But we also want to try and delve into now people that have cognitive and motor function disabilities as well. I think groups that have largely been ignored in this space over the years.
Corinne: Yeah. If I recall when I visited your premises out in Brea, you're really targeting the Neurodivergent community.
Ben: Right.
Corinne: And really looking at providing solutions for that, which I thought was, was really great. I don't think we're seeing that in the others. What I've noticed just from my experiences and what I've seen so far, I think you're all going down a great path and we'll hear from Tudy shortly, but also focusing on different areas. So, in light of that, Tudy, I know that, you know, I had the pleasure of having a presentation with yourself and your team a few weeks ago and you do have some features flying. But I was really kind of impressed with how you're focusing on sign language and personal audio services. So, are you able to speak more to that and what's kind of driving your accessibility strategy at Thales?
Tudy: Sure. Thanks for having me, Corinne. And again, excited to discuss about accessibility, you know, with with everybody today because it's definitely a very important topic, a topic for all of us and in particular for Thales. So, the journey started for a little bit in the same way as for all of us in the industry, meaning that for many, many years all of us were supporting, you know, closed captioning, which, you know, was a, let's say, an industry standard, which was great because it at least allowed to provide some level of IFE services for some level of impairment. And then I would say about yeah, but the same as Panasonic, about five, six years ago we implemented a first, let's say, let's call it a visually impaired UI. Okay. For, for passengers, for North American Airlines, it was, I would call it pretty rudimentary. There were a few, let's say, gestures that were supported. I would say it was okay for for some, you know, mild visual impairment. Then we were able to benefit from, let's say, OS features, you know, like, for example, Android that would give us very, very easily new capabilities such as the ability to change easily, you know, the font, let's say having bigger fonts modify the contrast of, of the display, even for example, like color inversion, things like this. Right? So that that was another step. And then I would say more recently we really implemented our first real visually impaired UI with our own requirement being let's address almost like the extreme of, of the scale of, of, you know, for really for blind passengers. So that represented, as you can imagine, a lot of challenges from a learning perspective. How do you even do that? How can you maximize the IFE services for passengers that are that are blind? So we went through that journey and we are very excited to be able to release that .that first capability early next year to, again, a North American airline and of course, to be able to offer this kind of capability moving forward for. for any airline that would request it More generally, as you said Corinne, we don't want to stop there because visually impairment is only one of the variations of impairment. And, you know, we have been also working on auditory impairment. And as you said, there is also a wide variety of scales and grades for hearing impairment from, I would say again, some level of impairment, mild and extreme to the point, of course, addressing deaf passengers. So how do you do that? So it's an important domain for research and technology at Thales where we are of course working with software partners to be able to provide a new capabilities, whether it be for passengers to be able to benefit from personalized audio based on their really, let's say, impairment as well as, for example, things that we are prototyping around sign language. Okay. And we are very excited to be able to, let's say, show those things to airlines, start to get their feedback and then, you know, decide how to, how to bring something to the market, but something that will be really, again, reliable. Right. That will be bringing really a true benefit to the passengers.
Corinne: One thing I wanted to ask the group, you've touched on personalized audio, Tudy.
Tudy: Yes.
Corinne: And I know that when we spoke, you said it's not spatial audio. I do know that Panasonic and SPI are both in the spatial audio arena, but Tudy you said it was more personalized audio. Question to Panasonic and SPI, are you looking at it as a possible solution for accessibility? Ben?
Ben: So, look, I think we're exploring multiple different avenues. I think spatial audio all by itself, whilst it offers a broader set of channels for people to hear a better experience for kind of surround sound placing kind of virtual speakers in many different locations, I think for, for people with difficulties with hearing, I think some better solutions are doing things like integrating with Bluetooth hearing aids as an example, because that gives that person a much more unique, personalized experience to their particular hearing need. I think, you know, things like spatial can probably help, but don't think it's the entire solution.
Corinne: Panasonic.
Andy: Yeah I would, I would add to that by saying you know we have a number of audio codecs at our disposal. And, you know, they're not exclusive. It's not if you have spatial, you can't have an Accessibility audio codec mapped on top. So we actually have a few layers here, including some specific accessibility audio codecs. Ben touched on a great point there, which is on the Bluetooth side and that's something that we work very hard with. It's actually very hard in a cabin because you're in a Faraday cage and you're up 40,000ft and there's only a limited number of Bluetooth channels available, number one. And number two, everyone who brings a cell phone on board kind of sucks one of those things up if they're using it as well. So we have, we have some intelligence built into the system that can prioritize some of these things as well. Um, it's finding the right one. And there's a number out there, a number of them out there. And one of the things that we found is by looking at the market like the consumer market and saying, where are these items getting used? Where are they getting used really well in the consumer space and how do we import that into the, into the airplane? And I think that's quite important because so much work has been done that we can leverage, aerospace can be a little bit guilty of being a bit not invented here sometimes. And we found a lot of strength by looking outside of aerospace.
Corinne: The value of having everybody together is that let's have an open discussion and see where can we kind of leverage each other's learnings. A passenger now may fly 2 or 3 airlines to get to a destination, or they might fly one carrier that has a split fleet. And if you're blind, for example, you might have to if they're flying on a fleet that has a little bit of everybody's solution here, they might have to learn different ways of using a system on a journey. So that's something that I've identified from early on that I think we do need some consistency in standards. Tudy, I know that you did have some interesting findings on hearing aids in response to what Ben was saying, would you like to share that with the group?
Tudy: Yeah, sure. So, working again around this hearing impairment challenge, what we what we realized discussing with several partners that are specialized in that domain is that there are limitations with the hearing aids. Right. Usually they can process audio anywhere between 20Hz and 8kHz. And we know that typical sound can go up as 20kHz. So, this difference makes that they may not be as efficient to provide the right level of audio response. And then, of course, when you are in an airplane environment, you've got noise, you've got, you know, like a lot of, you know, challenging surrounding audio. So, what we have, what we're doing is that we're working with, again, technology partners, again, software suppliers that may have, I would say, enterprise level audio processing capabilities. And then we're looking at how we could port that kind of capability to the IFE environment. Right. And then how do we provide this capability for the passengers so that easily, you know, when they get on board the airplane, they can, let's say, easily customize the audio for their own hearing impairment in a quick and efficient manner. Right. You don't want to go through, you know, 50,000 parameters because it can be very complex. But you want to bring very quickly the ability for the passenger to do a set of tests, trials, and then they have a much better experience to the point where they could even, that would be our vision that they could remove, you know, their external hearing aid device and then just utilize the IFE that would then provide the best audio experience without the need for having a, you know, a dedicated hearing aid during the flight. So that's one of the visions that we are currently investigating from a research and technology perspective.
Ben: It's pretty interesting. Think a couple things were touched on it that we're it's clear that not one size fits all. So certainly, when it comes to disability so customization is important. You've really got to be able to put the solutions out there that someone can take and tailor to meet their unique needs. So, I think it's interesting that we all kind of pick that up as a theme amongst our various solutions.
Corinne: Yeah, I think from my experiences, having gotten to know all your solutions and obviously following the Panasonic one as well, there are so many people with different needs, but I think when you take a step back, you are all building products for the same person, whether they're, you know, hard of hearing, deaf blind or, you know, have vision impairments. But very interesting to see the different approaches and the research that's coming out. Which leads me to my next question, obviously, there's a lot of research involved. I know back in the United days most of the time was just researching and testing. My question and I'll start off with this SPI, are you able to share with us some of the biggest challenges in researching and testing? And then I'd be curious to ask, you know, obviously Thales and Panasonic, are you having those same challenges?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely. Frankly, the biggest challenge for us is we're just not experts in this space. We're experts at making IFE systems. We're not necessarily experts in accessibility and what it means to make a solution that works. So that was our challenge, is there's a reasonable regulatory framework that's out there and guidelines for accessibility, not necessarily specific to IFE and not an exact match. I know there is some legislation that was mooted some time ago that isn't really active yet that helps drive I think supplies in a particular direction. But whilst it's not enacted, think people kind of look at it as a guideline and then still go down the path of going down. So really what we wanted to do is figure out how to get to the person who would be using such a system and actually work with them to see if the ideas we have resonating and are working. So, what we did to overcome our challenges, we started leveraging some of our airline partners and their disability advocacy groups that they have to actually go and work with people directly with our prototype, which is one of the reasons we decided to build a prototype first even before understanding if it's right or not. It's a little bit chicken and egg. You go and talk to someone about accessibility and say, ‘Well, what do you need?’ And they say, ‘Well, what have you got?’ So we decided to build something that we could show someone and then have them actually use it and observe them using it to really see what was working and what wasn't working. And for us, that was probably the most insightful thing we could do through this process to really hone in on what the solutions ultimately should be. Just by observing and watching that, something that really worked well for us.
Corinne: Okay. And were there any kind of like real challenges?
Ben: There's definitely some inconsistencies, but there's also very common themes. So, it's a common theme to really want to pick up on and make sure we're leveraging those things into the product. I think some of the inconsistencies also happened to deal with what I was talking about before, which is not everyone's the same and they would like to customize the experience for them and their own personal set of circumstances. So, I think when you start to look at that and pair those common themes together and have people select a set of features that are suitable for them, I think that then starts to solve the problem and then a little bit more of a meaningful way.
Corinne: Tudy from Thales, any challenges that you've been facing in researching and testing your solutions?
Tudy: Yes, I would say, you know, similar to my colleague, a lot of upfront work and lessons learned from the past because this has been really a journey. The need for having quick early on prototypes and iterate very quickly with a lot of engagement with users groups. This is, by the way, itself a challenge. You know, what are the users group and how do you, you know, what are the criteria’s that you put in place to establish what is the user group for a dedicated for a typical impairment? Um, I think also one of the challenges has been, I would say not to release a feature that we think would be good enough, Right. We really try to push the envelope so that that capability is, is really bringing really value for the passengers that is stable, that is reliable, that is proven, you know, and not just come up with something that we believe, you know, is fine. Right. So you really, really pushing the envelope because what one of the lessons learned is that, you know, passengers, regardless of, you know, again, whether they have an impairment or not, they want to benefit from the full IFE experience. Right. They don't want to settle down for, let's say, a watered down version, you know, because they have, for example, a hearing impairment. Right. They want to be able to benefit from all the capabilities. And we know that therefore, that represents a big challenge. Um, another challenge is of course, the, the range of needs, right? Our customers fly millions of passengers daily. Each of those passengers come from different geographies, different cultures. They may have a very wide variety of impairment. So how do you define, let's say, you know, what you want to address, right? How far do you want to go? And typically the visually impaired that we have, that we have designed, it took us a lot of time to, in the end, narrow it down to our goal, which was we're going to address the extreme case, you know, totally blind passenger versus, you know, a visually impaired that would just address, let's say, passengers that can see still shapes and forms and colors. Right. We really wanted to push the envelope because then with that, we thought, okay, if we can address totally blind passengers, then it's, you know, everybody is going to be able to benefit from that. Then in terms of challenges, it's true that while they are some, let's say, you know, things that you can get from from the industry, consumer electronics, one of the questions, one of the big challenges was around the gestures. What gestures to utilize for, for example, for our visually impaired UI? And we were not really familiar with with those, you know, with those those technologies. And so therefore, at one point we decided to consult with the American Printing House for the Blind (APH), which actually was a great, let's say, asset, to be able to guide us in that process, to select gestures that would make sense and that typically blind passengers would be able to very quickly, you know, apply, recognize and then utilize. Um, and then a lot of little things. You know, for example, when we speak about when we think about ear coms, you know, which, which are those, you know, audio cues that you provide to validate that an action has been taken. Then for example, okay, to what speed do you provide this, this little, you know, audio cue. So it was a lot of like iteration. And so in the end, definitely the testing and the validation. And again, you know what, user group Et-cetera was also a challenge. And again, you know, with a lot of humility, we continue to learn, you know, on a daily basis out of it.
Corinne: I'm glad you touched on gestures and I'll get to that after, but I'd like to hear from Panasonic. You know, obviously a lot of work has been done in the past and you're moving forward with accessibility. What are the challenges the biggest challenges that you've had and researching and testing?
Andy: I echo the comments made by Tudy and Ben there, it's tons of research has been done, been done with airline partners working with, you know, educational establishments. ET cetera. And it kind of highlights things that you're not always aware of. For example, there isn't just a universal sign language as different sign languages in the world. And it's I didn't know this, you know, so it's, you know, being able to build that into your paradigm. Uh, we're somewhat lucky that we have, you know, a global consumer business that we can pull some of that tech out of as well. And we did. And that is a big help for us. But I'd say one of the big challenges was taking all of that and then mapping it onto some of the complex aerospace requirements as well, like passenger announcements, safety videos. How do we build that into what's already, you know, quite a complex environment? How do we manage the differences between economy class and business class and have different aspects there? So that all had to get built in and having accommodation for different use cases. So, for example, I have a disabled child myself and there is no magic bullet between different types of levels of handicap. You can be blind and have a touch issue or or have a hearing impairment at the same time. So what we wanted to do is have a spectrum of use cases and a spectrum of capabilities that a consumer could then go and select from. And it's very important in what is already a very difficult experience for a consumer. I mean, I think the stress level is already pretty high for for everyone when they get on an airplane. I can't even imagine how complex it is if you are by yourself and you had an impairment of some sort. So any relief we can bring to the industry we've been trying to do.
Corinne: You know, I just want to get back on to gestures and let's talk specifically about blind users. So I'm familiar with obviously the United gestures that we developed when we're developing the solution. I also flew Fiji Airways, Max8, which has a Panasonic solution, which has the accessibility. What was interesting was that I didn't get any communication from them. I flew them quite a bit. I did several flights, but when I got to the Max8 didn't get any communication, but luckily, I knew the gestures from the work I'd done at United, so I was able to use that. Now Tudy, a few weeks ago at Thales, you were showing me your text-to-speech solution and what a blind user would experience, and I noticed that some of your gestures, whilst relatively similar, were slightly different to what Panasonic are using. So, and Ben, I know that's still a work in progress for SPI, so I guess, Andy and Tudy, you're both coming up with gestures based on research, just picking an airline off the top of my head, which I believe would be, let's say, Air Canada, where they have a split fleet with Panasonic and they have Thales. With your gestures kind of being slightly different, the question is, do you feel that there's benefit in the industry and also with whatever SPI is developing is that we come up with standard set of gestures for blind people that are flying because your customers are global.
Tudy: Yes.
Andy: Sure. I'll go first. I'll go first. Oh…
Tudy: Nope. Please, Andy, be my guest.
Andy: I mean, I agree. I think there's an opportunity here. You know, we're in such a highly regulated environment. We're all, all the companies are used to complying with regulations and working together on regulations. I think it's an area we haven't come up to to create reform here. But this is not an area I said at the outset, this is not an area that anyone should compete on. It's not, you know, it's not one of a you know, we've got plenty of things we can compete on all day and we have a lot of fun doing that. This is not one that I think we should, we should do we should do here, you know, gestures, text-to-speech, etcetera, different ways we can operate with haptics or screens or handsets, I think is an area that, you know, we could get together on. And I don't see any issue whatsoever in having an industry approach. So, you know, if you're a consumer and you're on the airplane and you don't, the concern can be taken away. You know, you can, you can know the, the way to activate the accessibility program.
Tudy: Yes, absolutely. And I echo what, what Andy said. There are at least two areas where I could see that, you know, we could benefit from each other of defining a standard. As you said, one could be the gesture. Okay. So like, for example, in our UI, we have 13 gestures that are, that are supported. There is no reason why we would say we would not be able to define, okay, those are going to be the gestures to, for example, you know, increase the audio level or decrease the audio level or go back home or, you know, do an attendant call. We should we definitely, we should not be, you know, fighting on this. Those should become standards. And if they become a standard, then everybody can embrace those and then it's going to be widespread. Okay. Any passenger that would come on board an airplane, regardless of which IFE is in front of him or her, will be able to utilize the in its fullest experience. I think we should absolutely all strive to do that in a similar way. As many years ago, a closed caption became a standard and then ensured interoperability between all the different IFEs. The second one I could think of again in terms of low hanging fruit could be controllers, right? I think all of us have a way of, you know, different controllers. Again, I'm speaking about the simple ones with buttons. I'm pretty sure that, you know, we are probably all striving to have, you know, a at least a default set of buttons that would always be at the same location and that passengers could very easily be able to access because they would know that, you know, top left is, for example, a way to turn off the screen. We don't have this kind of standard, as far as I know. And that could make, again, the life of passengers much more easy. So there are things like this that I believe as an industry, we should, we should take into consideration to define those standards.
Corinne: Yeah, great point Tudy, actually, because, you know, when you're looking at gestures, you're touching a screen and regardless of whether it's a Thales, Panasonic or SPI screen, you're just touching it and the gestures are coming from the person. But when it comes to mapping that to a handset, that was something that kept me awake for many, many months. And it was probably one of the hardest things that we had to do when we were working on it back at United was mapping the functions to a handset so a blind person would know how to be able to navigate and what was what. So, it was a lot of work, but very rewarding to know that we got somewhere close to, you know, a really good solution. But I guess one of the challenges is your handsets do vary and you have various iterations of them. It's, it's so diverse.
{Double Chime}
Corinne: Artificial intelligence. I don't know how much exposure you have had to it. Do you see artificial intelligence perhaps playing a key role in accessibility in your solutions?
Tudy: I can start that one. Think it's you know, there is already some level of AI or machine learning that can bring some improvements. You know, the one that I could think of could be a, the generation of descriptive audio content. Okay? Typically, descriptive audio content remains very limited in terms of access to, to this kind of, you know, yes, we support closed caption but descriptive is, is you know goes beyond and there is still not enough of that kind of content and I think machine learning or I could be able to provide a much more efficient and faster way of releasing that kind of audio content. Maybe some real time audio and video processing, okay for this for specific impairment could also bring some value. Um, but whether it's going to be really a, you know, a key element for me remains to be seen. I think, you know, we are just at the, at the beginning of understanding what is this new world, you know, driven by AI. So, so I'm sure there's going to be room for finding use cases.
Ben: Yeah. I'd add to that and say I'm not sure AI has a, a strong role to play when you're talking about building an interface or coming up with concepts that make people's lives easier. I think the current kind of large language models and the machine learning algorithms are very good at things that are deterministic using large data sets. So, I think as Tudy pointed out, if we can point them at creating better closed captions or better audio descriptions or things that they, they can use their data sets against to produce a better outcomes then I think that plays a role. I'm not yet convinced it plays a role in building a better experience, but time will tell. It's a, it's a big area and there's a lot I yet don't understand.
Corinne: Yeah, it's still early days and every day I power up my browser. There's like a new toy to play with. So, it's, it's quite exciting. It's like, Oh, we could do this and do that with it. So Andy, anything Panasonic would like to add on AI?
Andy: We keep a very, very close eye on AI, I mean, it's a very rapidly evolving landscape with the technology. Um, like I sort of said previously, it's going to impact the consumer space way before it impacts our space. So, we're keeping an eye on what happens there, but we certainly see the ability to automate all sorts of functions, especially if we're going to start bringing in different kinds of accessibility capability to consumers. You know, it would be great if we could automate a whole bunch of a whole bunch of the translation that needs to happen, particularly where you've got some of the more physical accessibility requirements as well. I think it can be used to enhance navigation, expand feature sets and maybe offer some dynamics that aren't there today. I mean, we do a lot of focus on audio, a lot of focus on visual. But earlier you were mentioning about the cognitive and there's a lot less in the cognitive space where we feel that AI is going to be a bit of a differentiator potentially. What's great is there's just so much work going into this right now, you know, internationally that, you know, we can leverage the work that needs to happen there. I think all of our systems have a consumer technology element to them. So porting it in isn't going to be the hardest thing in the world. I think the hardest thing is really making sure we do it effectively with quality. We don't break anything in the interim as well. So, you know, a lot of focus on it. It's clearly the technology is not going to go away. It's only going to exponentially get more more involved. We see the investment going in by some of these companies.
{Double Chimes)
Corinne: What are those challenges that you say some of the airline partners facing with planning and potentially implementing accessibility in their seatback IFE systems? SPI?
Ben: Yeah, sure. Look, think quite like ourselves, they're not experts in this space in some respects. They've got good domain expertise. They're probably got good connections with accessibility groups and advocacy groups to help drive standards with their own airline. But I think when it comes to IFE and the adoption of technology is actually quite overwhelming, I think a lot of them just don't know where to start, particularly when they've already got a level with probably closed captioning and maybe other things. There's other airlines that are more progressive in the space that like United, that have an experience that's, that's much more in depth. But I think when you start looking at, you know, what you need to do it very quickly overwhelms some airlines in terms of actually producing it. How do I do it? So, I think that's really where we're trying to approach this from, is if we can create an experience that is essentially out of the box, we take that thinking away from the airline. They don't have to be overwhelmed about it. They know they can deploy a solution that is going to meet the needs of the disabled passengers flying on their on their aircraft.
Corinne: Panasonic?
Andy: Yeah, it's a good question. And you've lived this already, Corinne, but it's with a larger organization or the larger airlines, I think a lot of it is about making sure that it's being thoughtful about across the entire organization. Some of these airlines are huge. They're gigantic organizations, and they can't just think about it in their product teams or in their customer experience teams. It needs to be thought of, you know, globally throughout. So, you know, some of the challenges have obviously been when we partner with the airlines of sometimes we find where we're selling the, feels like we're selling the need to do this where we just don't want to do that. You know, it's this is a requirement that we want to put in. You never get pushed back. It's an important feature set, but it's how do you build that in with the time crunches of building a digital experience for our customers? So, you know, I think it's understanding how it works, being able to present how it works and having that whole organization, you know, solidified behind that message in that vision of why it's being done. Some of the airlines are really, really mature at this. And some of them, you know, to Ben's point, are looking for us for the complete inspiration. And that spectrum can have, you know, both ends of that spectrum have challenges because, you know, you're trying to say this is this is what's worked before. And sometimes they want to do it in a different way. So, it's a it's again, it's it's a big challenge that impacts us. But the nice thing is that it's it's a common goal. You know, I think there's no airline that doesn't want to do this.
Ben: Yeah.
Corinne: Tudy, would you agree?
Tudy: Yes, absolutely. I think first, there is definitely a big trend that started years ago, but seems to be accelerating and is the fact that in most of the RFPs that we're receiving now, there are requirements for accessibility. Right. And I would say at a minimum, it's going to be about, well, again, obviously supporting closed captioning and descriptive audio, but also about visual impairment. Okay. And while many airlines do probably have accessibility groups in their organization that may not exist for all airlines, and I would say they may have the fear that the scope is daunting. Right, because when you're transporting, again, millions and millions of passengers and each one may have different challenges, impairment, then how do you address them all, right? This is, this is definitely almost like a daunting exercise to do. So, and then in conjunction with that, as there is, again, no real standard that exists. Okay, then it may make the life of the airline very challenging to know, okay, what path, what impairment and to, to what portion of, of my passengers. Um, another aspect is that for sure they want reliable solutions. Right. It is a sensitive subject. Right. And so, you know, I'm sure that the airlines do not want to put in front of passengers with impairments something that is not going to be well thought out, and that, again, would be counterproductive. So, they want to make it right. They want to have something that is really, again, addressing again, the, in a way, the technical challenge, but they want it to be reliable. So there is, of course, a challenge. Now, all that I would say for me in a way represents great opportunity for airlines because communities of impaired users are very, very strong. Right. And I suspect, we suspect that once somebody has experienced, you know, something great with their IFE during a flight, that the word is going to really go quickly around and that could turn again in an opportunity. Right. If, you know, an airline has this unique new capability and now, you know, anybody with, for example, you know, that is deaf is going to experience for the first time maybe ever, you know, an IFE experience. Can you imagine the impact that that would have that airline will be able to benefit from it. Okay. So there is definitely a lot of technical challenges, but they represent in themselves a lot of opportunity for airlines as well.
Corinne: Putting my airline hat back on, having worked for a really large airline and driven this project, I found what helped us to be successful was that the desire for accessibility came from the top. You obviously talk to a lot of the senior leadership at all the big airlines, do you feel that they're all on board? Is there any, are you seeing any regional differences where it's a priority more more so in some regions versus others?
Ben: Think it's a priority for sure for the majority of airlines. The ones we've certainly spoken to, as Tudy pointed out before, it's in every RFP that comes out for new systems, they're all talking about, well, it's great that they can get a new system. How can I retrofit this to my existing aircraft so that I've got a consistent experience for these passengers right across my fleet? I think there are definitely regional variants for sure. I think if you look at the European territory or the United States territory, there's a very high propensity for accessibility and making sure that society is equal for all to access services and functions.
Corinne: Andy, any regional differences?
Andy: I have to say I probably haven't seen a specific regional difference. You know, I'd say it's been a universal priority that we've seen. You know, you said yourself, you know, Fiji, one of our really good, great customer actually, you know, they've brought it on board. So, I haven't seen any specific regional differences personally, but I haven't been looking out for it, you know, per se. It's it's, you know, to Ben's point, it's typically in, you know, requirements at this point, you know, asking for accessibility and then a lot of engagement with us. What does that mean? You know, what can you show from your suite of products for an accessibility perspective that can be brought forward? You know, to the previous point, and, you know, it's it's making sure that if it is at the top that it is flowing down. So, you know, it's if a if a CEO of a president or a director of the airline is wanting to do something that does have to flow down to the, you know, the flight crew so they know how to, you know, work the system, as it were. And I think that's a challenge on the airline side in any big organization that has to be done. But no, per se, I haven't seen specific differences regionally. Um. Not something I've been looking out for particularly. Maybe I'll start looking for it.
Corinne: Tudy, so Fiji Airways also has tallies on their A350s. Are they also looking at balancing that out across their fleet and looking at what you have as well? I'm not singling them out, it’s just so happened that I flew them quite a bit recently.
Tudy: I would say in general, airlines are going to be asking for commonality of experience. Right. They do not want to have, you know, a complete different way of providing in-flight experience, you know, from one type of airplane versus another one. So, they're going to always be looking for this. And as we said before, that represents a challenge for all of us because, again, there is no real standard for some of the features we want to provide. Like, for example, gestures. Um, going back to what we were discussing about, you know, geographical differences. I think, you know, all airlines are probably catching up to those kind of elements, right. You know, everybody in a way speaks about accessibility, right. It's becoming more and more of a of a crucial element. And I think all airlines want to be inclusive. And therefore, more and more, they have the same requirements. You know, the to provide, you know, again, basic capabilities that can accommodate all type of all types of passengers. There may be actually, the differences may be more like to the passenger themselves. And for example, when we were discussing about audio cues right, a way you provide, let's say, a voice over, you know, in a given language maybe very, very different than in another language. So, which one do you pick? Right? It cannot be like a direct translation. It needs to be done in a very, very smart way. And so this, again, represents definitely a challenge, right? As we know, IFE supports, you know, hundreds of audio languages. But when it comes to some of those audio cues, you know, we need to pay extra attention to, again, the kind of of audio cue that we provide back to the, to the passenger that is using a feature. So this actually by itself represents a challenge. And I think the way to be able to work around it is to to have a standards and and of course embark the airline in that in that process. Also one, one comment because we spoke a lot about passengers etc. I think the role of the Crew is very important in that journey as well. Right. Because while we have learned that typically passengers with an impairment want to operate the system themselves, right. They want to be, you know, in control. And we need to empower them to be in control. There may be cases where they're going to need the help of a crew member. And so the crew member needs to be, needs to have been trained with that capability, needs to understand what it does, how it works and how to best serve the passengers accordingly.
Corinne: You touched on Crew, which was a really great point, Tudy. I know Panasonic of the Blind Passenger can activate text to speech on their own. They do not need the crew to support, however, SPI and Thales, I believe you're building a solution where they do need the crew to get some assistance. So, would anyone like to comment about the direction that's going? And have you had different research that has led you down your various paths?
Ben: So think the point on assistance versus someone taking control of their own journey is an interesting one. The way we're addressing it is we want to be respectful of people's ability to be independent. So, we have the features within the GUI that allow them to go and do that. If they can self navigate. Obviously you need to find your way in. So we want to try and make that as easy as possible at the beginning. So generally we try and make accessibility at the highest level of the navigation so you can find it quickly and then go and set your settings up and think a lot of different electronics suppliers are doing it that way. Then when it comes down to the interface itself, we did a lot of looking at do we try and modify our existing UI with accessibility features on top or should we actually go and create something that's specific that can be adapted to individual needs very specifically for various different disabilities? And where we got to in the end was that it seemed to be this specific UI was the way to go just because you could make it very specific and unique for these, these types of disabilities. And it seems that others are taking a similar approach. I mean, you've seen recently Apple have recently announced their new accessibility features where they've taken the approach of having a separate UI so they can be more specific and more providing an experience that they can, they can control based on the feedback they're getting from their customers as well. So, I think there's certainly a direction in the in the technology industry generally out there that making an interface that is specific seems to be the, the way it's going at the moment. But we're going to continue to watch kind of how this evolves and try and make the best decisions we can based on what we're seeing going out there. And obviously the feedback we're getting from customers and passengers who are using our systems.
Corinne: That's really interesting. I question for Panasonic, having heard SPI comments, Apple going down that path of giving a separate GUI, do you think that could potentially impact your strategy, Andy?
Andy: I would say that we're constantly looking at the market, particularly around the UI, as I'm sure all three firms are, and you know what's happening in that area. And it has evolved year on year. And if you go back and look at an interface from ten years ago, I mean, they look very, very basic to where they are today. And it's been brought on a lot. You're seeing that with particularly with cell phones and tablets, but now with smart TVs and then with web application, streaming applications and how that works and how that impacts on the user experience and accessibility sort of part of that. So we're constantly evolving, looking at the market, taking market forces and building that into our particular product set. So, the products that how it is today, we've had a lot of success with it. We continue to have success with it, we’ll adjust to market forces as they come in and what provides the best experience to the consumer, to the to the airline, and we'll engage with them, show our research and shows what's going on there. But it's like I say, it's number one there's no magic bullet, and two, it's a constantly evolving market. So I think the important thing here is to be able to adapt to change and to push forward with what the market's pushing towards us.
Corinne: Tudy?
Tudy: Yes, actually, it's a, it's a very good question because we are living it right now. I would say our first MVP for the visually impaired UI for, for blind passengers, we want it to be, I would say, a bit cautious. And so make sure that, you know, the crew would be the one that would activate that different UI because it is a very different UI. It is not a spinoff of, of the one that all the older passengers are able to use. So we wanted the crew to be in control. Now, as part of the testing that we have done with with airlines, the feedback has been, okay, you know, this is great for an MVP. Could you look at the ability for a passenger to be able to enable it at the seat itself? So we are looking at this and it represents actually two challenges. The first one is, what is the gesture that will not trigger other events? Because, again, by default, remember, it's the standard UI that is being displayed on the passenger seat, right? So, you want to make sure that the gesture is not going to, you know, you know, let's say, enable buttons that actually correspond to the to the origin, to the to the real UI. The second one is actually, again, going back to the standard, there is no standard. So, you know, if, for example, Thales implements a gesture that, you know, nobody else in the industry is using, then it's going to be as good as a passenger, you know, installing and using a Thales IFE you know which there is a benefit. But it's going to be limited. Right. So this is actually a typical example of if there was a unique gesture that everybody can utilize to be able to, you know, turn the display into the visually impaired UI, then anybody that you know is sitting in front of IFE would be able to enable this this feature. So that that's how I would say a first example of a collaboration that we could get started, you know, tomorrow.
Corinne: Good point, because I do know from my experiences that there was a lot of research done for exactly the reasons that you mentioned Tudy, that it's got to be a gesture that someone can't do by accident and all that and it was a certain rhythm, but it was triple tap. Now it's not an industry standard, it's just the first one that came about. So in terms of moving forward, should that be the standard? Would that work on, say, an SPI monitor, would it work on a Thales monitor? We know it works on the Panasonic ones as well. But classic example of defining those standards because I'm just thinking and the only one that comes to mind - you all are part of the Qatar Airways fleet. You all have a piece of that fleet. If I was to fly across their whole fleet and I had a visual impairment, I'd be triple tapping on Panasonic to activate it. What would I likely be doing on Thales and what would I likely be doing on SPI hardware? So I guess from an airline perspective, I'd imagine to streamline the communications, to train their crew in particular, it would really be a huge, huge benefit, not just to the customer, the operational benefits from a communication perspective to customers to support the crew because the crew have so many priorities of safety and all of that. And, you know, you want to build something that they don't have to play a huge part in supporting and it's consistent irrespective of what aircraft they fly. So in that scenario, not singling out Qatar, but they're the only ones I can think of that have all of you do you feel that that could be potentially what starts to drive standards, the fact that you are all across that fleet?
Andy: Sure. I mean, I think we talked about earlier, it's probably not a point that is like I said, we have plenty of things we can compete on and we compete on every day. And, you know, accessibility is not one that's… no one's going to win points for having the most accessible solution at the end of the day, because that's not what we're trying to win on. We're trying to win on, you know, different technology paths. Etc. So I don't think there's particular IP on stuff like this or if there is, it's taken from a market somewhere. So, I don't see a particular issue with that. Requirements will be driven down by the airline. But you know, maybe it's an area we can collaborate on in terms of providing a more standard regulation back into the system. I'm not normally a fan of regulations because we have so many of them, but this is probably quite a good one. Maybe we'll swap back to that.
Corinne: Yeah, I don't think anyone's a fan of regulation. And a few years ago I said, Oh, we don't need it. But seeing some of the challenges and I know there's stuff brewing in the US, but also whatever happens in the US that can influence obviously everyone that flies here, but not everybody flies to the US. So, and they've got their markets to support and they've got their community and their passengers as well. So I think it really needs to be a global, a real global perspective in looking at that.
{Double Chime}
Corinne: What do you believe collectively we can do to help advance accessibility in seatback IFE? And are there any particular groups, whether it's APEX or IATA or any of these groups, do you feel is best placed to drive it, not trying to put them on the spot. What opportunities do you see moving forward together collectively to really get a good, consistent solution that really benefits the passenger and the airlines? We'll start with Tudy.
Tudy: Yes. I can think of two, two domains where more collaboration can be definitely done. As we discussed before, the first one with regarding standardization or let's call it interoperability, I think APEX (Airline Passenger Experience Association) should have definitely a role to play. And as we discussed previously, we could start with gestures at large. So that could be a first, first simple thing to do that APEX could help us to, to define. The second one is around the communities, communities of users around different types of impairments. Because again, as we discussed before, let's say every one of us has done a lot of background work, surveys, interviews, testing, validation. And in a way we are kind of redoing a little bit the same thing, all of us, right? So one thing that we could do is, again, as an industry and maybe that could be IATA or again or APEX would be to, to create community communities around, you know, specific impairments. Okay. With partners where would be able to address, you know, different, different impairments and having, I would say, a unified validation process across the industry so that there could be, I would say, a minimum standard expected for all those capabilities that we would provide, again, for visually impaired, for hearing impaired. etc Right. Those are the two I can I can think of.
Corinne: I think they're great ideas. Panasonic, Andy, anything you'd like to add?
Andy: I mean, I think it's important that, you know, we as players in an industry remember that we have a consolidated consumer group that we're all servicing. We transport people, we have people with, you know, a range of abilities or disabilities. And, you know, we have a responsibility to provide an experience to our airline customers and those passengers with, you know, an engaging experience for our for our for our through our products. As I said earlier, I have a handicapped son myself, so I take this a lot to heart. And I recognize, you know, the challenges in this industry, whether it's seats or IFE or, you know, just accessibility in the airport itself. It's it's a very complicated and frankly, a very stressful experience. And it's always good to remember that, you know, what we're doing is got a value above, you know, largely above the pure competition of putting, you know, engaging entertainment systems into aeroplanes. So, should there be a group involved? I think that makes a good, it's a good idea. I don't know which group it should be. There's plenty of them out there for us to choose from. I don't think any, any of these companies, any of our three companies are going to push back on, you know, helping, uh, helping a passengers with, with disabilities to, to have a greater experience and to take the stress out of the experience that they're currently having today. I think we almost have a responsibility to do that. I think the airlines feel that way, and we're all taking it seriously. So that's that's the important thing here.
Corinne: SPI, Ben?
Ben: Yeah. Look, I echo the comments of both Andy and Tudy. SPIs position is that we haven't got anything we want to protect here. We want to put, you know, patents on. Think that's not the point. We really want to try and make this open and put the solutions that are developing out there for others to see and comment on and iterate over to ultimately make better solutions for the people who need to use these. Um, in terms of how bodies that could help, I know APEX did used to have an accessibility working group. I know it hasn't been active for a number of years, but I think maybe if we all lobby APEX to restart that, then I think that would be a good place to at least get some engagement across industry. Um, also, as we talked about, Corinne, you mentioned the legislation that's potentially happening with the Department of Transport. We could all sit here and wait for that or we could get on the front foot and say, okay, well, there's been a whole bunch of stuff that's already been written way back from 2006 that we could start looking at now to say, well, what could we do as an industry to start implementing that even before it becomes law? Often legislation is used as a, you know, a hammer, a stick. It's kind of the wrong way of doing it. We are all waiting for the legislators to come and tell us the rules were really we should be saying, well, what's the best thing to do? And approaching the legislators with our solutions to say, hey, this is a different way to think about it and a different way to engage this community.
Corinne: Your company support worldwide, airlines flying in and out of all kinds of countries. So I think probably a more global perspective, in my opinion, would be probably a good approach. I know we don't have all the answers and we're all learning as we go. But, you know, even moving forward, one of my goals and one of the goals with the podcast is to keep talking about it because I think if keep talking about it sooner or later, somebody is going to listen.
Tudy: They will listen. Yes. And it will happen. And it will happen.
Corinne: Exactly. If you're paying the same amount to be on that plane, you should be able to enjoy everything just like the next person. I think if we can find a way to share information, whether I know Andy rings up Tudy and says, ‘Here are our gestures’ and Tudy goes, ‘Here are our gestures’, and then they share that with Ben, then that's a win. It could be as simple as that. I mean, would you agree?
Ben: Yeah, absolutely.
Tudy: Yeah, definitely. Yes. Yes.
Ben: I think this as Andy kind of talked about before, there's things that we won't talk about together because it's very competitive. But I think for topics like this, having a forum where we're all together discussing our ideas is actually a really healthy and great thing to do to drive better solutions ultimately for everyone.
Tudy: And by the way, I want to thank you, Corinne, for putting that together because it's a, it's very refreshing to have this kind of conversation again with my colleagues here to discuss about, you know, topics that definitely, you know, cross the boundaries of our company. This is much bigger than us, right? And this is really about all the passengers with again, you know, a variety of of impairment and handicaps and etc. So, you know, we are, we are just like you. We are here to help as well. And it could get started tomorrow.
Corinne: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, let's keep talking about it. Let's keep it out there in forefront. And I know there are obviously other priorities. Got airlines, you got hardware, you got all sorts of things happening. But I think if we can keep it all close to our heart and in front of mind, we can hopefully make a difference. Ultimately, I think it would be great for APEX or IATA or one of these industry groups to really take the lead. They have the resources and support to be able to do that and really drive it for the industry.
Ben: I will say one thing. Though, You know, looking at the future of passengers who are going to experience these systems in the future, I mean, the technologies are all fantastic. So passengers are going to be very lucky whether they're flying on a SPI plane, a Panasonic plane or a Thales plane. They're all going to get just magnificent experiences. It's unreal.
Tudy: I agree. I agree. Absolutely.
Andy: I think I'm I agree. But I'm also glad that the markets kind of had that rationale that the seatback is that important. I mean, you know, there was a big portion of time when, you know, are these things going to take over. Are they going to be super important and far from it. I mean, gosh, for a …
Ben: It's going the other way.
Andy: It’s quickly going the other way as well. I think you're seeing, you know, the airlines really focusing on seatback is important. It's here. It's part of engaging our customers. We need it. We need to have it right now. We need to have a great solution. And, you know, like I think I said, that all the companies have great products of one sort or….
Ben: Absolutely.
Andy: And we'll save the other stuff for social media because it's great. It's so much fun. I have to say. It's so much fun. It's so much fun.
Corinne: The prophets that stood up on stages in conferences saying, “Seat back, will die”
Andy: Yeah, yeah. I've heard that my whole life. Yeah.
Tudy: Been hearing that since day one…yes.
Ben: They’ve all been wrong.
Corinne: And I think the fact that we're all here talking about it, talking about its future, talking about enhancing it for passengers of all abilities, I think shows that it's here to stay and it will be here for quite a long time. Would you agree?
Ben: Absolutely. I mean. It’s the journalists really question that they feel they have to ask, is that going away? Well, it's the same answer I gave you last year. No, it's actually growing, not shrinking.
Andy: Is that going away? What do we do with all the cameras? That's my favorite, the cameras…. {Laughter}
{Double Chime}
Corinne: Gentlemen, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, sharing your strategies, your challenges. And let's keep brainstorming how we can move together as an industry, what we can do to make sure every passenger can enjoy entertainment. Thank you so much for your time today.
Ben: I'd just like to thank you, Corinne, for organizing this. I think it's a really important conversation. I'm glad we're talking about it. I'm glad we get to continue talking about it. So it's only through, you know, people actually putting this out there and talking about it we will actually start to see improvements in this area. So well done. Thank you.
Tudy: Yeah, thanks a lot, Corinne, for, you know, for putting this podcast together. And if anything, I wish that this podcast can also help us to, to move the needle a little bit, you know towards, as we discussed, some level of standardization for some of the features that we discussed during the show. So again, thanks for having us.
Andy: And I'll close and say thank you, Corinne. Thank you, Ben. Thank you Tudy, It's great to spend some time together as we look forward to be, you know, more inclusive as an industry. It's so important. There's so many people out there. They want to enjoy the magic of flight and, you know, we can help empower that. So thank you so much.
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