Airlines have been eliminating seat back inflight entertainment screens in recent years. With this move, some airlines offer free movies and TV shows to view on your personal device.
There are a couple of problems that I’ve had with this switch, with the main one being where to place the device. Holding your device while watching isn’t the most comfortable thing to do. One hack that I’ve tried is to use a ziplock to hang your phone in from the seat back.
On a recent American Airlines flight, something in the seat back made personal device entertainment a lot better.
Above the tray table latch, I noticed a small cutout along with what appeared to be a long, thin switch.
When I gently pulled up the switch, a small tray dropped down. I immediately placed my iPhone on it to see if this would be a good vantage point to watch a movie during our flight.
Soon after, I realized that the switch could be pulled up.
The purpose of this part of the personal device holder is to hold your device in place.
While this wasn’t of use for my phone, imagine leaving your tablet on this small ledge during turbulence? I could totally see the table flying off. (Luckily we didn’t hit any turbulence during our flight…)
I tested this part of the device holder out and had a hard time getting it to work with an iPad or Kindle which was in a case.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I used this seat back feature for the majority of our 3+ hour flight. It made watching on my phone much more comfortable and enjoyable. Hopefully, this will be added to more American Airlines aircrafts in the future.
Have you seen this seat back personal device holder (or something similar) on any flights? If so, let us know which airline it was on.
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David- I don’t recall but according to Flight Aware, it was a Boeing 737-800.
WHat plane type?