Nearly two years after announcing its Fusion platform, Hughes Networks confirmed its first customer: Delta Air Lines. The carrier will deploy the multi-band, multi-link, multi-orbit solution on “future new deliveries of select A350 and A321neo aircraft.”
Delta confirmed in early January it was “exploring” the potential for this partnership. And it has been rumored as part of the pair’s plans since Delta and Hughes first announced their relationship in November 2023 (that announcement was expected from June 2023). Installations are expected to be flying later in 2025.
Hughes will allocate capacity on its JUPITER Ka-band GEO constellation and contract with Eutelsat Oneweb for Ku-band LEO capacity to serve Delta.
The industry has been trending towards a “multi-everything” approach for some time now. Multi-band saw limited deployments (mostly with American Airlines) from Viasat with its Ku/Ka antenna solution. In recent deals for Intelsat and Panasonic Avionics the multi-orbit solution blending LEO and GEO of Ku-band connectivity won over multiple airline customers.
This deal, however, is the first to confirmed to deliver multi-beam – along with multi-band and multi-orbit – in the commercial aero market. Thanks to multiple antenna apertures on board, Hughes Fusion can support concurrent traffic flow over Ku-band LEO networks and Ka-band constellations across orbital planes.
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Delta’s fleet plan calls for delivery of 21 A321neo and 5 A350-900 aircraft this year. It holds 115 orders in total for the two types (including both A350-900s and A350-1000s), plus options.
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Interesting I wonder how the passenger experience will be different and if it would be obvious to them or have the same face
The user-facing front end should be the Delta Sync managed experience, with no difference noticeable to passengers. Performance may differ, particularly when using the LEO satellites rather than GEO. Whether and when passengers notice will be interesting to follow for sure.