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WSJ Your Money Briefing
In-Flight Map Gets a Big Makeover
00:09:33
The in-flight map in airliners is getting a technological upgrade. You can get loads of new data such as encyclopedic details on Mont Blanc as you fly over it, or when dinner will be served. Wall Street Journal Middle Seat columnist Scott McCartney has the details.
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one most trusted app based on August 2025 proprietary survey. Over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings July 2024 to June 2025. With your Money briefing, I'm Charlie Turner in New York for the Wall Street Journal. Those in flight maps you watch on the backs of airplane seats are getting a real makeover, including much more detail. The Journal's Middle Seat columnist Scott McCartney joins us in a moment. First, here are some money headlines those interested in investing in major airlines may want to fly United Continental, the carrier said its first quarter profit doubled from a year earlier and a key sales metric, revenue adjusted for passengers, seats and miles traveled, also rose. The Wall Street Journal's Hurt on the street says United hasn't had to cut ticket prices, even though it's added more seats by expanding its flight network. United has done this by funneling traffic into key airports such as Denver and Houston. However, Hurt on the street says United's domestic network remains outgunned, particularly by Delta Airlines, which is partly why United's stock has been trading at a discount. Heard on the street columnist Dan Gallagher says Intel made the right call by deciding to effectively exit the business of making modem chips for smartphones. It's a market that intel had been playing catch up for years, and its iPhone business had always lost money. Intel plans to fulfill its contracts for current generations of those processors, but it will halt plans to build chips based on the incoming 5G wireless standard. The news happened to come just hours after Apple, Intel's largest modem customer, settled a long running legal dispute with Qualcomm, Intel's largest modem rival. Philadelphia Fed Bank President Patrick Harker is sticking with his view that the Federal Reserve may be able to raise interest rates two more times over the next couple of years. Mr. Harker says that with a strong labor market, muted inflation, sustained moderate growth and what he calls the penumbra of uncertainty. He continues to be in wait and see mode, and his outlook for rates remains at most one hike for 2019 and one for 2020. Mr. Harker is not currently a voting member of the rate Setting Federal Market Committee. In the Fed's March forecast, the central bank penciled in no rate hikes for the year as a whole. Still ahead, the In Flight map makeover. If you're like me when you fly, you spend a lot of time looking at the inflight map on the seat back in front of you. Well, there's good news. The in flight tracker is getting a technological makeover. It'll have plenty of other features besides your location, altitude, airspeed and distance traveled. Here to tell us more is the Wall Street Journal's middle seat columnist, Scott McCartney. Scott, the in flight map is a great way to pass part of the time if you're flying from New York to la. It helps the flight go fast or at least for me. Tell us about some of the new features that the map manufacturers are adding to the trackers.
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C
Well, it's going to be very interesting and somewhat predictable for people who are used to dealing with airlines these days, realizing that the map is the number one use of in flight entertainment. It's where travelers eyeballs are, where they're pointing and touching the screen. The map makers and airlines are looking for ways to start making money from that. And so a lot of the new features will have to do with giving you options to purchase things. So say you're going to Los Angeles and you can zoom in on Anaheim and there will be a list of, say that you're interested in going to Disneyland and the 10 most popular rides at Disneyland, things like that, all kinds of lists and rankings from social media. And then if you want to buy Disneyland tickets or tickets to all kinds of other attractions in your destination, then you'll have that option with the map. And you know, for a lot of people, they plan a trip, they book their airline tickets, a hotel, maybe a rental car, maybe not. And then when they get there, they start looking at theater tickets or amusements or boat rides or all kinds of things to do. So the thought is the map can become a portal to selling all that kind of stuff.
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Can you buy airline tickets on these screens?
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C
Yes, you'll be able to buy airline tickets. You'll be able to, you know, look at different cities where the airline you're riding happens to fly. And some of the plans that I've seen simply draw a line on the map from this place to that place and it'll give you a list of fares on whatever dates you want to go. So you can, you can buy your tickets on that. You can track somebody else's flight while you're in flight. If Your spouse is going somewhere, you can see if they're on time or somebody you're meeting coming in on another flight. You can get sort of encyclopedic knowledge of all kinds of things that you pass. You can get information about your flight. It may show, for example, the dinner's gonna be served in 20 minutes and sort of have a countdown to when dinner service will start.
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B
I noticed this. It looks like it's either a picture or a digital rendering of the Alps. This is from Panasonic's new map. I guess it's an upcoming map. Is it a picture or a digital rendering? It labels some of these locations, like Mont Blanc, Grenoble.
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C
It's not a picture out the airplane. It is a virtual view, if you will. Panasonic in particular is using video game programmers to actually build the scenes and the graphics and the things that you can do with it. You'll not only see the depiction of the Alps and the highest peak, but you'll be able to sort of pinch the screen and fly the airplane and take a good close look at the Alps. If you want to get up close and personal, even though your flight's not going to go anywhere near it, I think it's great.
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You know, the supposedly dull map was enough for me. You know, I just wanted to measure the progress of the flight. But really this is like Christmas time for a lot of people who like the maps.
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Yeah, it is the notion of the things that you can turn it into sort of an entertainment option and play with it. And you know, a lot of people do are looking forward to cameras mounted on airplanes. A few airplanes have that now. It's been very popular. I think we'll start seeing more of that right now. Some of the maps can give you the view out the cockpit or the view off the left wing or the right wing. The cockpit is the most popular. It's a view. You can't see where you're going when you're in an airplane. You can only look out the side. And so the view in front of the airplane is really kind of a cool thing. There are lots of cool things coming in this too that I think will make it even more popular.
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B
Yeah, you talked with one gentleman, I guess, a London based doctor. He uses the onboard WI fi to follow his flight on Flightradar24. That's a site that also shows where other aircraft are located.
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C
Yeah, Flightradar24 is sort of a fascinating site I wrote about a couple years ago. A couple of guys in Sweden realized that planes now broadcast their position and there's public data available on that. So they created this entire network just by having people put receivers in their attic all over the world. Just volunteers and created this amazing site that tracks airplanes. So if you're flying across the Atlantic, for example, you can use that not only to track your flight, but to see which plane is 10 minutes in front of you, which plane is 10 minutes behind you, which which plane is at a higher altitude above you, and just follow the Congo line right across the Atlantic. And that's just one use you can with Flight Radar 24, you can look at planes anywhere in the world. The coverage is really extreme. And so I think it's a great idea to sort of sit there on your flight and not just track your flight, but all the other flights in the air around you that you might be curious about.
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B
Scott, you mentioned that Panasonic's new map will be flying in the first quarter of next year. Is anything along these lines available now?
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C
Flight path 3D is A is a company that's fairly new and is now flying has products flying on 50 airlines, including some in the U.S. they've been very popular and they have some capabilities to allow you to pinch the screen and zoom in on different levels and, and they also offer different views. You can look at the cockpit view out the left or the right underneath the airplane, things like that. They're already putting in things like list of the top 10 trending places for a destination if you're planning on visiting. So they have a lot of this rich content built into their current offering. Sort of the next generation is going to be even better. And what we're seeing from them, from Panasonic and I think Collins Aerospace Airshow, which was the original map, is due for a refresh much more. In a way, it's sort of following what you can already do with your phone, but you'll be able to do it on the airplane.
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B
Fascinating. Wall Street Journal Middle seat columnist Scott McCartney. Thanks a lot, Scott.
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C
Great to be with you, Charlie.
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And that's your money briefing. I'm Charlie Turner in New York for the Wall Street Journal.
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Access to affordable credit helps me pay my But I don't really need it.
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Infliction is killing me, but who cares? Big retailers are making record profits. That's why we support the Durbin Marshall credit card bill.
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See, banks and credit unions help small businesses make payroll. This bill would cut the vital resources
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they need while increasing megastore profits.
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They deserve it, don't they?
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Tell Congress, stop the Durbin Marshall money
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grab for corporate megastores paid for by
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the Electronic Payments Coalition.