The High See

Sitting idly aboard an airliner one day in 1956, a Tennessee theater-chain owner named David Flexer was struck by how much the cabin resembled a screening room. Flexer's brainstorm: Why not show movies in flight? He formed a company called Inflight Motion Pictures, Inc., spent five years developing a compact, shock-resistant projector and screen with the help of Trans World Airlines.

TWA began showing movies on its overseas flights in 1961, has remained the only U.S. airline to show movies in the air, largely because of an exclusive contract it made with Inflight. The line has steadily expanded its movies to U.S. transcontinental flights, has found them a popular drawing card that has helped increase its passenger load 24% since 1961. Now TWA's days of exclusivity are nearly over, and the U.S. public is about to be served movies as commonly as meals in flight. Last week American Airlines announced that it will put on its own show for passengers, thus ensuring that other airlines will soon join the trend to movies in the air.

Tapes in the Cockpit. American plans quite a variety-show offering: closed-circuit TV pictures of takeoffs, landings and scenery below, full-length movies, local TV shows while waiting on the ground and stereophonic music for traditionalists. After convincing itself with a public opinion survey, American got Sony Corp. to make special equipment for its theater in the air. Whereas TWA's films are flashed on the screen at the front of the cabin from a projector hidden high above the aisle, Sony is equipping American's planes with a series of 9-in. TV sets--one for each two passengers in first class and one for each nine in coach--with individual headsets and controls. Movies will be transmitted from tapes in the cockpit. The first screenings will be on the Chicago-Los Angeles run, but by the end of September all 45 of American's Astrojets will be fitted for airborne entertainment.

Also on Ships & Buses. Airline schedules may soon read like movie guides.

Pan American this week is running a test flight with the Sony system.

California's Ampex Corp. has developed a similar system, called "Travelvision" for showing movies and television on planes, ships, buses and trains, and within two months will install the first system in a U.S. airline. Flexer's Inflight has 35 systems working aloft for TWA, another four for Pakistan International Airlines; it has also obtained a waiver of its exclusive TWA contract so that it can service noncompeting routes, is presently negotiating with one international and four domestic lines.

With all this competition ahead, pioneering TWA is thinking of offering half-hour movies on its shorter-distance flights. Hollywood has clearly invaded the heavens; its problem now is to tailor its products to flying times.

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