Chasing an Airborne Entertainment Niche

Business executives fly--often in private corporate aircraft--and when they are not busy at their laptops writing reports and reading research material, some of them actually want to relax.

Enter Airshow Inc., the Tustin-based maker of passenger flight information and real-time television systems.

So far, the company has specialized in information and entertainment products for corporate types who use big planes.

But niche marketing is the name of the game these days, and Airshow is playing the game.

On Monday, company President Dennis Ferguson said Airshow had purchased the product line of Flight TECH, an Oregon manufacturer of in-flight entertainment equipment specializing in products for small and medium jets and turboprop aircraft.

The acquisition marks Airshow’s entry into the light jet marketplace and gives the company its first entertainment and passenger information system packaged in a single unit.

The new product, known as the Entertainer, was unveiled last April by Flight TECH. It includes a DVD player, a multidisc CD changer and a flight atlas with moving maps covering the globe so passengers can track their flight progress.

Manufacturing of the Flight TECH product line will be moved to Airshow’s Tustin facility from Oregon later this year. Ferguson said he doesn’t expect an immediate hiring increase from the consolidation, although he expects new jobs to follow if the products are a hit in the marketplace.