The Business of Passenger Experience
Aeromexico's first 737 MAX rolled off the assembly line at Renton last week and all indications are that, unlike the company's 737-800s, it will not be flying with the Gogo 2Ku solution.
Calling it a next generation network may be a slight stretch but Panasonic Avionics is making some changes to how it delivers inflight connectivity. Adding bandwidth is the (relatively) easy part. Blocking the updates no one needs on a plane is harder but also a potentially more significnat improvement to the passenger experience.
Air Canada's 737 MAX fleet is getting inflight connectivity but it might not be what was expected. The first radome installation is complete and it looks like a new vendor may be in play, with Thales breaking in to Gogo territory.
Looking for free inflight internet connectivity? Japan appears the place to be. ANA will add free internet service on the bulk of its domestic fleet in 2018, delivering more connectivity on more domestic routes than any other carrier in Japan.
Passengers flying across the Pacific Ocean are set for a major upgrade in inflight connectivity performance. Panasonic Avionics and Eutelsat announced this week that Eutelsat 172b is now in service, delivering a massive increase in capacity to the market, particularly for the routes aircraft use between the United States and Asia.
Is it the ultimate surveillance scenario or a step forward in the passenger experience? Or maybe a little bit of both?? Vendors are cooperating today to deliver integrated biometrics in the inflight entertainment system, tying together a camera embedded in the screen with connectivity to various other platforms that can act on the data.
Has the LEO/MEO revolution spooked Panasonic Avionics? "Radical change" is coming according to VP Global Sales David Bruner, putting the company's 6-payload XTS Ku-band network on a new track.
Singapore Airlines 777 fleet is finally receiving some of the promised new inflight wifi systems. The first to carry Inmarsat’s GX hardware was spotted this week in Los Angeles after completing its retrofit a couple weeks ago.
Some nine months after announcing the dual-supplier approach and roughly five weeks after the first plane went into the shop Southwest Airlines now has a 737 with Panasonic Avionics’ Ku-band wifi installed.
