The Business of Passenger Experience
Spirit Airlines will add inflight wifi as it seeks to improve the onboard passenger experience. The carrier's full fleet will carry Thales FlytLIVE hardware by the end of Summer 2019.
New seats, new screens and more live television took flight one JetBlue this week. The first of the restyled A320 planes is now in service, delivering upgraded amenities. And 12 extra seats on board.
A spike in aviation-related revenue is good news for Inmarsat but not all revenue is created equally. There's more to this story than just the raw numbers.
It has been flying for a while, but the high speed Inmarsat Global Xpress (GX) service is now officially live on Qatar Airways. Some 130 777 and A350 aircraft will eventually carry the kit. And all passengers still get a free hour of connectivity on board.
Commercial success in the inflight connectivity business is anything but easy. That isn't stopping newcomers from trying. Saudi Arabia's Taqnia Space group launched the UON offering earlier this month and it has potential. But like other offerings in the market there are questions about how well it can scale up to meet demand (both bandwidth and profits).
Qatar Airways is the latest airline to bring gate-to-gate connectivity online. Regulatory changes are now approved allowing the service to operate. The next couple years of growing passenger demand with minimal spare capacity should be interesting to watch play out.
Major drama in the inflght connectivity world this afternoon as joint venture partners Eutelsat and Viasat are splitting on a major project. Eutelsat is launching KONNECT, its own massive increase in Ka-band capacity in 2021 and has new partners to work with on that deal. Oh, and it is bailing on its potential partnership for the ViaSat-3's EMEA coverage.
One antenna kit to handle connections to multiple satellite networks sounds like a great idea. Gilat now has one on offer but there’s just one problem: It is unclear that commercial demand is truly sufficient for such. Oopsie.
After taking nearly a year to unwind the complexity of its financials following a string of acquisitions Global Eagle is finally ready to move forward on executing its plan. Leadership and funding changes announced this week are a major step forward on that front.
Looking to fly on United’s newest aircraft type? Head to Houston on June 7th to be part of the first day of 737 MAX 9 operations. Alas, nothing particularly now or exciting with the interiors.
