The wrappings look nicer and nicer, yet the content gets weaker and weaker“
Yesterday, I flew LH from Munich to Mumbai. Regardless of the GermanWings crash of Barcelona, the fear I felt was limited. The direct connection was uneventful – perhaps the landing was a little more robust than usual. Other than that, everything was as always.
But: one riddle has been solved for me.
I am not a frequent flyer, nor do I care very much about entertainment on board. As a general rule, what I have on my screen while dozing is the “flight info”. That is an image where the position of the flight and data such as flight altitude, outside temperature, speed and more is (used to be) displayed.
And consequently, I never understood why, among the passengers on board the Barcelona crash flight, there was no panic or uproar. Because if I imagine myself looking at a flight altitude of 1,000 metres on my flight info screen – and that directly before the Pyrenees – then I can easily imagine myself being bathed in cold sweat.
As of yesterday, I know that the new entertainment system of LH no longer makes such a thing possible. And that probably the crash flight already had the new system on board. Just like yesterday my flight from Munich to Mumbai had it.
The new system will provide the user with only very little information. You have a menu with four items to choose from: the display of connecting flights, two cameras you can watch and something called SmartFly whatever.
The screen for connecting flights had a notice that you will be able to see information on connections shortly before the end of the flight. As to the cameras: one of them probably was tilted downwards and the other towards the front. Neither of them rendered special information yesterday – there were clouds underneath and darkness up front. The fourth (smart) item showed virtual images – beautifully designed with a Lufthansa plane in the middle – about the area we were flying over with occasional names of cities. However, there were only three items of information.
Well, we are talking distance from destination, remaining flight time and current time. No flying speed and altitude. …
I am only writing about this because, to me, this development seems strongly representative for what generally happens in our society. There is less and less transparency, information is kept secret from us, everything is wrapped in cotton wool and delivered… and then we are told this is all in our best interest.
I do not like it. I would like to know what is happening, instead of always only being made a fool of. Even if facts are not pleasant. Just like I do not appreciate constantly being spied upon.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
I took the picture from Wikpedia – but we flew a smaller Airbus.
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