India’s Vistara has big plans as it aims to bring the 787 Dreamliner into its fleet later this year. What passengers experience on board, however, will not quite be exactly what the press releases have suggested to date, at least not when it comes to the inflight map.
PAC
Ch-ch-changes atop Panasonic Avionics
The past few years have not been easy for top leadership at Panasonic Avionics Corporation (PAC) . Following a bribery scandal in 2017-2018 the company brought in many new executives, including CEO Hideo Nakano and CTO David Bartlett. Nakano departed that role in November 2019, replaced by Ken Sain. PaxEx.Aero has also learned that Bartlett is no longer with the company.
Swiss completes A340 retrofit with updated IFE/C suite
Passengers on the Swiss International Air Lines A340 fleet are now guaranteed to fly with the company’s newest product. The carrier announced this week that the fifth and final aircraft completed its retrofits and returned to service.
Gilat delivers a successful Ka-band ESA test flight with Honeywell, Telesat
Finally some good news worth celebrating in the ESA space. Gilat’s new kit went flying on Honeywell’s 757 and successfully linked with a Telesat GEO Ka-band satellite.
An electrified experience: PaxEx Update – 13 Dec 2019
Electric aircraft are really real and the Embraer E2 family is complete. Plus a ton of good news for Airbus and an incremental eventual win for inflight connectivity.
Panasonic Avionics confirms Eutelsat 10B as second XTS satellite partner
Panasonic Avionics (PAC) plans a significant boost to its Ku-band satellite capacity from 2022. The company confirmed a contract for multiple gigahertz of capacity on both multi-beam payloads of the Eutelsat 10B satellite slated for launch in three years.
Global Eagle signs with Turkish Airlines for inflight connectivity
Adding more than 100 Turkish Airlines planes to its inflight connectivity backlog is good news for Global Eagle. Perhaps more significant, however, is the potential for additional program growth that come from the partnerships it established to secure this Turkish Airlines deal.
Sunrise Stretch: PaxEx Update 2019-10-18
The beginnings of Project Sunrise and extra leg room for the Kiwis. Plus more wifi (maybe) coming in China and another loyalty top tier moves further away.
Get these stories and more in this week’s PaxEx Update.
Lufthansa Technik dives in to the Chinese inflight connectivity market
Announcements related to inflight connectivity in China are hard to process. Vendors continue to sign agreements and push out releases but forward progress in terms of getting hardware on planes remains stalled. This week Lufthansa Technik (LHT) joined the field with an announcement of an offering for airlines in China. But, like the others, it is unclear what the timeline for implementation will be or where things will go from here.
Moving Maps and much more coming to Vistara’s long-haul fleet
As India’s Vistara begins its long-haul operations it will bring a new inflight entertainment ecosystem to the passenger cabin. Perhaps even more interesting is the bit that will be included that were not included in the press release.