Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Less Boredom in the Air with Air France

If you’re like us, flying is boring. We can only watch so many mindless movies, read so many mindless magazines, and listen to so much crappy music. Never mind trying to concentrate enough to “work.” Sometimes we numb out and watch the little plane flying over the little map of the “flight maps” on our little seatback screens. Or we actually listen to the cockpit conversations when that’s offered.

But now along comes something really fun.

Air France is rolling out a new satellite photo view system. It shows satellite photos (not real-time) of areas the plane is flying over. So far, it’s available on several Air France’s Paris-to-India and Paris-to-Singapore routes, and the airlines says it will eventually expand the service to other routes.

Here’s an image of Mumbai from the European Space Agency, one of the satellite services which provides photos to Air France.