Skip to main content

The Future of Flying Is Personal

In this episode. Your Seat, Your Sound, Your Sky: The Future of Flying Is Personal

"The call to stillness comes quietly; the modern world does not."

When was the last time you visited an airport? What did you notice around you? What sounds did you hear? There's quite a bit of hustle and bustle, along with the loud noises of jet engines roaring. It's always an energetic and lively place!

A recent flight from San Diego to Peoria, Illinois, shows just how much personal air travel has changed—maybe soon you'll be enjoying wine even on an economy ticket, along with free pretzels or perhaps a delicious Stroopwafel.

Not long ago, that trip was a test of endurance. The inconvenience of boarding, the juggling of excessive luggage, the indifference of most passengers toward the crew, and an overhead screen playing a movie obviously selected by annoyed attorneys. The audio crackled through fragile, communal headphones. The only sound was the roar of the engines.

Fast-forward to last weekend, somewhere over the California desert. I realized I was no longer just a passenger — I had become a curator of airborne bliss. I watched destination videos of Paris and Chicago (since everyone daydreams about other places when flying to Peoria), navigated a live 3D flight map, and listened to Dan Gibson's Solitudes in peaceful silence through my AirPods.

This wasn't travel to endure. It felt like someone had crafted my experience to justify the cost of a small European hatchback.

Here are the two tech upgrades transforming flights like mine — and why we should all be grateful to our benevolent overlords in the sky.

  1. Your Seat as Command Center: Finally, Control!
    The communal screen is dead. That sleek display in front of you isn't just a monitor — it's a seat-integrated computer built to make you forget the existential despair of 31 inches of legroom.

On my San Diego–Denver–Peoria flight, I started exploring the system and quickly realized how much control I had. Each screen operates independently, turning every seat into its own small media hub.

  • On-Demand Everything: Those around me were absorbed in their own worlds. One man slept while a strange movie played. Another was busy scrolling through podcasts, as if deciphering ancient texts. The woman beside me spent two hours focusing on the flight map and her phone—a display of social fragmentation.
  • 3D Flight Maps: My favorite feature. I zoomed in on our route across the Midwest, watching rivers and towns crawl by below. For a moment, I felt virtually in the cockpit — altitude 32,560 ft., airspeed 564 mph, arrival 1600 hours. And when we touched down? We were still doing 174 mph — comforting information when you're hurtling toward the earth.

It's a small change that shifts everything. You're no longer a passive passenger. You're the commander of your own cockpit of comfort — as long as you don't touch anything important, like the emergency exit.

2. Your Headphones, Your Sound: Silence Is the New Luxury

If you've ever tangled with those free airline earbuds, you know they're basically a cry for help disguised as audio gear — offering a soundscape limited to Engine Roar and Disembodied Announcer Yelling About the Beverage Cart.

Now, new in-flight systems allow you to pair your own Bluetooth headphones directly with the seatback screen. I connected my AirPods in seconds, and the improvement was instant — and almost heretical by old airline standards.

  • Crystal-Clear Audio: Dialogue and music sound as they should — crisp, immersive, and disturbingly good. It's like watching a blockbuster in a sensory deprivation tank, if the tank also sells Snickers for $6.
  • Peace: Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) turns the cabin's dull roar into silence. Sometimes, I forget I'm even flying — which is ideal when you're inside a pressurized metal tube at 35,000 feet.
  • Smart Awareness: Do you need to hear the flight attendant offering a $14 cheese plate? Flip on Transparency Mode. It won't make the cheese any cheaper, of course.
  • Familiar Comfort: No more communal earbuds that look like they've been through several pandemics. Just your own, clean, custom-fit pair.

It's a simple change that shifts the mood of the flight. Those hours in the air become your time — not the airline's, not the crying toddler's in row 24 — that call to stillness.

Final Approach: More Than a Flight

Somewhere over the patchwork farmland of the Midwest, as the wheels prepared to kiss the Peoria runway, I realized these upgrades do more than make travel easier. They make it yours.

You're not just getting from A to B anymore — you're crafting the experience in between and choosing your story. Curating your sound and finding $14-platter-level peace above the clouds.

So next time you buckle in, take a look around. The technology in your seatback and tucked into your ears is quietly redefining what it means to fly — one perfectly paired, noise-canceled second at a time.

I'm Patrick Ball, and this is On the Fly. Until next time, stay curious, keep exploring, and here's to finding a little wonder — while expertly ignoring everyone else on board — even at 35,000 feet.

Comments

Most Popular of All Time

Paris – the End of Silence

✈️  In this special episode: Paris – the End of Silence Sometimes, connection arrives in the most unexpected form—not through grand gestures, but through a quiet voice carried by technology. In a Paris apartment, I finally understood my family’s words . . . and felt my mother’s presence in every sentence. Since I was a little boy, France has been both a beautiful and frustrating paradox in my life. Every six to nine years, my mother, Mauricette, would take my brothers and me back to La Rochelle to visit our French family. The moment we arrived, the air would fill with a sound I loved but couldn’t share in—the rapid-fire, musical rhythm of French. My aunts, uncles, and cousins would warmly sweep me into hugs and kisses, their words flowing like a lovely melody I couldn’t quite catch. I’d smile brightly, trying to communicate with my eyes and hands. But as soon as we stepped off the plane, my mother and her sister-in-law, Joséan, started talking animatedly. They were gone, chatting h...

Pushing the Pause Button

In this episode, Pushing the Pause Button: Stepping Off the Treadmill Hello, friends — If you're reading this, I'm already off the grid. Today begins a much-needed vacation, and for the next few weeks, On the Fly is taking a break right along with me. For a long time, my inner voice has said, 'Keep every commitment, no matter what.' That's meant early mornings, long days, and a calendar packed with posts, podcasts, and projects I couldn't seem to say no to. I've been trying to be the tireless workhorse—but that kind of grind doesn't end well. Lately, I've noticed I'm not quite myself—shorter fuse, louder sighs, and a few too many grumbles (Lori deserves a medal). That's when you know it's time to hit pause before the spark burns out. So, I'm stepping back to rest, recharge, and remember what it feels like to not live by the next deadline: no tech, no to-do lists, just some space to breathe. Thank you, truly, for all your support and ...

The Friday Morning Pause

In this episode,  The Friday Morning Pause: When My Brother’s Bookshelf Called Me to Stillness We live in a world allergic to stillness. Our mornings begin mid-sprint—thumbs scrolling before our eyes even open. The impulse to jump into the digital chaos is immediate. But sometimes, stillness finds you . It was early Friday morning. We’d arrived late the night before, stepping into the cool air before the day turned hot. Half-awake, I reached for my phone—emails, headlines, social feeds waiting like a morning buffet of distraction. We were in Cuba. No Wi-Fi. No 5G. No password. Just stillness, disguised as inconvenience. Instead, I caught sight of something unexpected: a small stack of books on my brother’s TV shelf. My brother and his wife are powered by perpetual motion. They are the definition of overscheduled and overstimulated. Yet there it was: Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday, quietly mocking my scrolling habit. The irony was perfect. I put my phone down—a small, delibe...

Noirmoutier: An Ocean Between Us, Gone in a Moment

In this episode, Noirmoutier: An Ocean Between Us, Gone in a Moment. Sometimes love waits half a century for its moment — and when it finally arrives, time doesn’t stand still; it disappears. The moment I stepped off the train in Nantes, it felt like time froze. There she was — my cousin Michèle — waiting on the platform, arms waving desperately. When we finally embraced, the fifty years that had passed between us disappeared in an instant. The melody in her voice was the same, but softer than I remembered. We both shed tears of joy that only come from love long overdue. “I’m so happy you are here,” she whispered, her voice trembling.   Thank goodness for the translation app on my phone, because the conversation began immediately — fast, fluid, and unstoppable. The Frenzy of Catching Up As we drove for about an hour to the tiny town of L’Épine on the Island of Noirmoutier, the words kept tumbling out. Michèle and her husband, Alain, are the most gracious hosts — but my new challe...