Standards and tools developed by Safran Passenger Innovations to support its accessible inflight entertainment (IFE) solution are now being made available for free to industry — including to SPI’s competitors — as part of the firm’s praiseworthy work to expand accessible entertainment for passengers.
SPI manufactures the popular RAVE and nextgen RAVE Ultra IFE systems. Together with partners Air New Zealand and Virgin Atlantic, SPI developed an accessible IFE solution called RAVE OS Accessible Mode which features a dedicated simplified user interface (UI), a “configuration wizard” for passenger personalization; and a screen reader that announces the feature selected in the UI through the passenger’s headset.
The solution enables passengers with vision, auditory, and motor function difficulties to easily navigate IFE systems. A finalist in the 2024 Crystal Cabin Awards, Accessible Mode is also designed to make IFE easier to use for neurodivergent passengers and others with cognitive disabilities.
“For the RAVE IFE Accessible Mode, we feel that the industry needs to do better to accommodate everyone to have entertainment on board the aircraft. We feel that, to make this accessible to the industry, we are very happy to provide our designs and our concepts freely available to not only our airline customers but our competitors,” SPI vice president of products and strategy Ben Asmar explained to Runway Girl Network at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg.
“From our perspective, to make this an industry standard would be wonderful.”
In Accessible Mode, IFE menus are presented as large buttons with either large high contrast text or icons, depending on passenger preference. Image: Safran Passenger Innovations
SPI’s approach is an easy way of bringing accessibility to more IFE systems, and is suitable for in-seat IFE as well as wireless IFE and indeed portable wireless IFE, Asmar confirmed.
“For accessibility, consistency is one of the most important things. And if you travel from aircraft to aircraft, airline to airline and you’re getting a different accessible experience then you’re starting again to learn something new,” he said.
“If we can really get a standard out there, I think this industry really evolves and does better for everyone. Based on that, we will be publishing our standards on our website and tools on how to apply them, and making it freely available to anyone who wishes to use them whether they are running RAVE or not.”
Accessible Mode is unique in that it gives the passenger the ability to configure the system at the very beginning of the experience based on how they are going to be interacting with the system.
In addition to fielding feedback from airlines and other stakeholders at the airline passenger experience industry’s big exhibitions last year, SPI worked closely with special interest groups to meet the real-world needs of disabled passengers.
Initial implementations of RAVE OS Accessible Mode will start rolling out this year to SPI’s own customers. But SPI’s competitors in the IFE space are now welcome to adopt the solution as well, free of charge, for their own airline clients.
Related Articles:
- Safran Passenger Innovations to launch accessible IFE this year
- Op-Ed: Why “reg-neg” pact on accessible IFE should be preserved
- United impresses with accessible app for the blind
- Op-Ed: Standards should shape the future of accessible IFE
- Tying up loose ends: Neurodiversity and aviation safety
- How United’s accessible in-seat IFE lives up to expectations
- Op-Ed: Airlines should follow United on seatback IFE accessibility
- Accessible IFE comes in fits and starts, but regulatory push needed
Featured image credited to Mary Kirby
