We are pleased to provide a transcript of the #PaxEx Podcast interview with Dimitrios Tsirangelos, VP of business development at international travel media network Spafax. The audio recording can be accessed here.

Intro music.

RGN: Terrific conference, APEX TECH. I just love it. It’s becoming one of my favorites. I love the deep dive. Dimi, when you’re here at APEX TECH, what are you on the lookout for? What do you want to hear? 

Dimitrios Tsirangelos: I want to hear what is the vision of the airlines for the next five to 10 years. I want to exchange and to get feedback on what we think and what our vision is in terms of content, media sales, personalisation and all these buzzwords that we hear. So we have our own ideas, our own vision and I would like always to compare visions if we are on the right path or not.

RGN: The role of the content service provider (CSP) has been evolving for quite some time and it’s actually getting quite interesting. I had an interview with Safran during the AIX show in Hamburg. And I said, ‘you know, in this brave new world where we’re going to start seeing the mirroring of content and the edge caching and everything else, where does the CSP play?’ And it was fascinating. They said, ‘CSP is still needed because now those negotiations are getting more complex and you need someone who really understands this industry to do that.’ Talk to me about that as connectivity is kind of changing the game where CSPs fit in?

Tsirangelos: So that’s why we don’t like to be called a CSP anymore.

RGN: Ah yes, okay. 

Tsirangelos: So somebody, I think another CSP, they’re calling themselves also not a CSP anymore, like something like an experiential thing. We say we are an experience service provider. So that means we are an orchestrator on bringing licenses on different platforms through different kinds of delivery. So that’s the one part. But I see, specifically Spafax, I see as a partner where data for personalization and for recommendation, a mix of revenue generation through media sales, so data, is very important for us. So Spafax, as an experience service provider, provides also the background information, the intelligence behind all these personalization subjects. So that’s why I think that it’s not only orchestrating licensing and through the jungle of licenses and distributors and means of delivering content, but also the intelligence, how to personalize for the passenger. 

RGN: Okay, that’s a very good point. And we didn’t get a chance to dive into it yesterday, but GDPR is a big consideration in Europe and passengers need to opt in. Part of GDPR is also, if I want to be forgotten, you’ve got to be able to have a mechanism to forget me as a passenger. That data. How does one even set up that ecosystem to be able to do that?  

Tsirangelos: Actually, you don’t need this hyper personalization. That means that, what do all passengers have in common? Even if they are individuals, what do they have, for example, in common when they are in the aircraft? They have one destination in common. They go somewhere. So this is something that you can target, right. So you’re not hyper personalizing, but you’re targeting that, ‘oh, everyone is going to this destination so you can deliver targeted content for this destination.’ So you don’t need this real personal data that is governed through GDPR or all the other legislations that you need. So I think that the first step that we need to take is to target audiences in a more concise way, in a way that is relevant to the traveler at this point when he or she is in the cabin. And of course, we heard today United, how they personalize and how they use this data. And there is also a technological solution where the person is not identified by name, date of birth, but it’s identified by an ID number. So this ID number, let’s say, works like a DRM. It’s an encrypted number. If you don’t have the key to decrypt this number, you don’t know who that is. You’re not sharing any sensible information. So technologically it is possible to do this personalization without disclosing data. 

RGN: That’s interesting. Okay. My daughter is 21 years old. She spends way too much time on TikTok. 

Tsirangelos: Yeah, my son too. 

RGN: And it feels like the mix of content is changing for the younger set that, you know… I find even myself, and I just turned 50, I do some fair amount of doom scrolling on Instagram these days, which I never used to do. Now I’m fascinated by some of these content creators. They’re interesting. How does kind of the mainstream content creators compete with what individuals are doing? And do you, can you bring that in an interesting packaged way to IFE that makes sense or does it, should that just run over the inflight connectivity?  

Tsirangelos: Yeah, that’s a mix, right? Since you will have Starlink, you will have OneWeb, the Amazon Kuiper. Yeah, let let them do that. Nevertheless, we still can and do already curate specific innovative content, specific content and what many people do not see, but it’s a huge opportunity for airline passenger, for all of, is the branded content. So we have been delivering branded content from brands that are extremely interesting. It’s unique, passengers love like a mixology kind of series, branded by a brand. But it’s, it’s an interesting, it’s a unique content. So creating this kind of content, which is unique and beside all this social media content, I think that’s a nice niche. What else? And we have also, we are now working, for example, on a user generated survey content. So instead of delivering a survey to a passenger and answering questions, you deliver a QR code, for example, and the passenger goes in and creates feedback for the airline. And the airline can use this feedback as user-generated content like in the format of social media. And of course there is the system behind is, you know, you control a little bit of the content. You cannot say stupid things when you give your feedback. So positive, being always positive, but also some critical content that you can use. So user-generated content specifically for the airline is also a niche. So different formats and still using connectivity for, you know, for Instagram and and TikTok or whatever.

RGN: Yeah. One of the interesting things that I also saw on, in fact, the Safran stand was how they’re creating really interesting partnerships.  Like, effectively, you can create an interesting meal that might match a movie preview that you’re going to do, and you can do an entire dedicated page. And how do you integrate that entire thing? Are you seeing more of these kind of promotions around content in-flight or is that kind of all going to come in the coming years? 

Tsirangelos: Yeah, personally I love these things.

RGN: I do too!

Tsirangelos: You know, like when you have a meal and you can get some, you know, even the recipe of the meal like and, and if the information of the cook, if there is a two-star, three-star, one-star cook that cooperates with the airline. We have been, we have been talking for a long time about interactive meals menus on board of the aircraft where you can combine content and perhaps as you said in a movie, but I haven’t seen that. I mean, we have presenting that to airlines, but there was no big appetite for that for the moment. So, but, if it were with me to select, I would select something like that. Yeah. 

RGN: Okay, very good.  Anything else then that you would like to highlight or underscore about what Spafax is doing specifically? Of course, you’ve got a great hub here in Hollywood. That’s been really important. 

Tsirangelos: Yeah. Yeah. 

RGN: You’re uniquely positioned, it feels, like here in Los Angeles. 

Tsirangelos: How do you mean?

RGN: With your ten-year hub.

Tsirangelos: Yeah, of course, of course. We, that’s a major revenue stream for us and a big part of the company. The opportunity that we have to work with studios and to act as the lav and being able to help this kind of customer is very important for us. And also being part of the delivery workflow and defining together with studios and other industry people, partners, companies, the way of, of how in the future the content should be delivered in a secure and safe way. You know, some years ago we had exactly the same discussions about DRM and now we have the same similar discussions about OTT delivering right, secure, secure OTT delivery. So having the hub and being able to to work with studios helps us in these discussions, right. 

RGN: I found one of the points made on the panels yesterday that 4K content now is what kids want to see because their eyes are trained for that [was interesting]. From where you sit, are you seeing something similar?

Tsirangelos: Yes, yes, yes, yes. But you know, we started to work also on destination content and we had during the AIX, our a VR product where we where we deliver a platform for destinations on 360 the VR. And here already we are talking there is nothing below 6K or 8K. So VR content needs to be upwards from 6K so that you have a nice experience. So, yeah, high definition videos not only for movies and TV, but also for other applications like VR. We had here Meta today. So all the content that we distributed also for the Lufthansa VR experience. This is high-definition content. Yeah. You need to have this. 

RGN: Wow. Oh, of course. Yeah. You’ve got a very interesting program with Lufthansa. How’s that all going? 

Tsirangelos: That’s going well now. There, there it will be. It’s now under evaluation again to see how how passengers reacted. And there are some next steps to take there and to deliver it in much better way. Perhaps. 

RGN: I went on my honeymoon on Austrian Airlines and had a great time. But the one thing the new hubs said was do they have this live game that he wanted to watch? Right. And live TV is opening up now because the IMG relationship has changed. 

Tsirangelos: Very correct.

RGN: And it feels like that’s a huge opportunity that’s just coming down the pike. Are you seeing that too? 

Tsirangelos: Yes, yes, yes.  We just had our El Clásico streaming, live streaming of a game, you know, in Spain, El Clásico,

RGN: I love this stuff.

Tsirangelos: Yeah yeah, So we, for Iberia and we just did that in some weeks and it and it was really successful right. So events, life events, our live ticker is like, how they say in German, we sell that like like warm bread like so yeah so  the Lufthansa Group is really loving it so it’s a short, small bandwidth real-time news for sports events so it’s great.

RGN: Okay perfect thank you Dimi I really appreciate.