The Business of Passenger Experience
How much revenue does the American Airlines fleet contribute to Gogo? What will things look like in 2018 as 400ish planes leave? Here's a look at what I think might happen.
What good is having an inflight wifi connectivity product if no one is using it? Gogo sits flush with satellite capacity and is pushing to increase take rates (and revenue) up dramatically on its platform.
Viasat is one step closer to bringing significantly more Ka-band capacity to the Americas. The new ViaSat-2 satellite successfully reached its orbital slot and is moving through the testing phase, with EIS still projected for February 2018.
Is Premium Economy or Basic Economy a bigger deal for American Airlines? The short answer is “yes” though President Robert Isom offers some interesting stats to consider about the profits the company is seeing from the two products today and where they are expected to go.
Consolidation is coming in the cabin components industry with Astronics set to acquire Telefonix for $104mm in cash. The two companies product lines are largely complementary, covering in-seat power, passenger service units, seat actuators, inflight connectivity components and more.
Netflix wants you to have free wifi on your next flight. That’s the only way it figures you’ll use your Netflix service on board. The catch (of course there is one) is that Netflix doesn’t want to be the one paying for that bandwidth. And it doesn’t really care who is, so long as it gets credit for making your flight better.
American Airlines is switching up its in-flight internet setup, giving ViaSat a big win and dealing a blow to Gogo. As for passengers, still a lot more info needed to decide whether we win or lose.
Why a lawsuit over wifi? Because the response to a message didn’t come quickly enough. Amazing how such things can pivot so quickly.
Lots of drama in the crazy world of in-flight connectivity this week, including a lawsuit filed by American Airlines against Gogo seeking to terminate a contract on 200ish airplanes. Things are getting very interesting.
Who is winning the race to provide wifi on international flights? Probably the consumers, with United Airlines following and Delta close behind. American is a distant 3rd among the major US carriers right now.
