Irvine, CA | March 31, 2014– Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Lumexis Corporation have announced the Lumexis Fiber-To-The-Screen® (FTTS®) system provisions will become offerable on the 737-800/-900 for customer deliveries beginning January of 2015.

“The Lumexis team is delighted with this significant step toward full line fit, having gained the confidence of this major airframe manufacturer in our leading edge IFEC,” said Doug Cline, Lumexis Corporation Chief Executive Officer. We are most appreciative of their supportive and collaborative offerability team, and we look forward to soon becoming qualified and offerable by Boeing.”

Singapore | February 27, 2014–  Lion Group’s Indonesian full-service carrier Batik Air and Malaysian affiliate Malindo Air have decided that their new aircraft are to have back-of-seat inflight entertainment systems from US company Lumexis Corporation.

“We have chosen to have Lumexis Corporation’s award-winning Fibre-To-The-Screen (FTTS) embedded IFE system for our Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 aircraft, starting with the aircraft due for delivery in this year’s second-half,” says Batik Air CEO, Capt. Achmad Luthfie.

“Batik Air will be the first airline in the world to have the Lumexis IFE system on board an Airbus A320-family aircraft,” he says, adding that to achieve this milestone Batik Air and Lumexis Corporation spent time and effort consulting with Airbus and industry regulators. “We feel it is worth the effort, because the Lumexis IFE system provides the airline and the travelling public with several key benefits,” says Luthfie.

Unlike some other IFE systems, this ultra-broadband fibre optic network completely eliminates bulky seat boxes that sometimes intrude into the passenger’s foot space. This weight saving, together with also eliminating large and very heavy copper data cables, reduces fuel burn, generating significant cost savings for the airline.

The Lumexis system uses touch screen technology which means passengers no longer need to use a separate remote control to change channels or adjust the volume. The IFE LED screen on Batik Air and Malindo Air’s 737s will be 10.1 in for economy and business-class passengers. For business-class passengers travelling on Batik Air’s A320s, the screen size will be 12.1 in and for economy-class it is 10.1 in.

Content provided on the IFE system includes video-on-demand in HDD1080. “The fact that Batik Air is a full-service carrier means we believe in providing passengers with the very best. That includes a top quality IFE system with a wide selection of top TV programs and movies from Hollywood and around the world,” says Luthfie.

Malindo CEO, Chandran Ramamurthy, says: “We chose the Lumexis IFE system because we could see that there are clear benefits. Malindo is positioned as a hybrid carrier, but we promise to provide the same level of service as a full-service carrier. Providing back-of-seat inflight entertainment, with a wide selection of TV programs and movies to choose from, is just one of the ways we deliver on our brand promise.”

Malindo Air will receive its first Lumexis equipped aircraft in August.

Lion Group president Director, Rusdi Kirana, says: “I can see that Lumexis is very much a challenger brand in the IFE market. The company is working to win airline customers by delivering a product that provides a number of key benefits. Batik Air is also a challenger brand. It is an airline that delivers a number of benefits to passengers, including a very high standard of inflight service. ”

Kirana adds: “I am very impressed with the user interface on the Lumexis IFE system and how passengers can access onboard services such as inflight catalogue shopping, using this interface. One of the key areas we are focusing on at Lion  Group is increasing auxiliary revenue.”

Lumexis CEO, Doug Cline, says: “The team at Lumexis is honored to have gained the trust of such a strong and growing organization as Lion Group. We are committed to assuring Lion Group’s continued success by providing an ultra-reliable, ultra-light weight system that outperforms even the most costly competitor. Because FTTS absolutely has the lightest installed weight-per-seat of any embedded IFE system flying today, Lion Group carriers and its affiliates will be able to operate over very long routes, while burning substantially less fuel.”

Irvine, CA | December 18, 2013– Lumexis Corporation today announced the promotion of the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Lou Sharkey, to the additional role of President, continuing to report to Doug Cline, Chief Executive Officer. Chairman of the Lumexis Board of Directors, Ed Shapiro, explained that “Lou has more than twenty years of operations and engineering management experience, including a key managerial role with Doug at Sony Trans Com. He has maintained that close collaboration with Doug at Lumexis and has been a central figure in the growth and success of the company.”

Cline added that “I am immensely pleased by Lou’s stellar progress. Under his direction, the exceptional Lumexis team developed and delivered a disruptive fiber optic technology to the airline industry with unprecedented success. Now, as President, he will continue to guide its major growth into commencement of line-fit at the major aircraft OEMs.”

In case you slept thru the holidays you might be the last one in IFE to hear about the news: Zodiac has issued a letter of intent (LOI) to purchase seat-centric IFE system manufacturer, IMS. The deal should conclude by year-end, and from what we hear, Joe Renton is thrilled about the company and the agreement (Note: No purchase price was announced). The large French aerospace conglomerate has had a busy year and a financially rewarding one to boot. They recently purchased Heath Tecna and Contour (seating), and IFE is even more clearly in their sight as they have already put a system forward with Sicma, a previous acquisition. We understand that IMS will stay in Brea, California and present-day thinking is to keep the 250-person company intact. Further, we believe that the leadership team will remain unchanged. No doubt, naming and branding will come to the table as soon as the deal is done. We should also note that all IMS products and services (including the Northwest service operations) are included in the deal. IFExpress understands that the sales and marketing organizations will be the first to increase headcount (wink-wink, nudge-nudge). In these kinds of deals, a careful look is usually taken at the two products currently in production (RAVE & SiT) to determine a way forward and, as one insider told IFExpress, product manufacturing locations will be based upon what makes the most sense. We like the potential of a closer proximity and business relationship to Airbus too as the possibility of line-fit operations might be in the offing, not to mention early retrofit requirement knowledge.

While the IMS company spokesman was hesitant to provide much in the way of market detail, we see great value for existing and new customers based on the successful Zodiac history of acquisition and their strong balance sheet. This fiscal year, Zodiac increased sales revenue by almost 26% (Tot: 3.4 B Euros) while current operating income was also up 26.4%. If you think that growth might be an anomaly, Zodiac has had 9 straight quarters of double-digit growth! Can your IFE company say the same? It looks to us like Zodiac is majoring in single-aisle retrofit capability and may see a spurt coming in that business market. With airline employees spread thin, a package retrofit turnaround deal could be a winner for the airlines, especially with increased passenger traffic returning to the travel market.

On another note:
In case you got wind of a good size Lumexis headcount reduction… forget it! We called CEO Doug Cline and he vigorously rejected the rumor. “In fact, if anything, we have more going on today with new content services, Wi-Fi sales and marketing, new hardware installations, and ramped-up marketing efforts around the globe. Of course,” he noted, “with our founding strategy of outsourcing most engineering and manufacturing, it may look like reductions to some in the industry as we realign to current needs. But we have continuously maintained and grown our core of talented management since opening our doors.” Doug also told us to tell our readers that there may be a few announcements soon that will nail the door shut on these rumors. Nuff Sed!