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.
SES and Yahsat have more capacity in the sky thanks to an Arianespace launch last night. The launch suffered from anomalies after the second stage ignition and the satellites were not inserted where initially expected, though both companies report control of their assets.
More live TV is now flying in South America. Brazilian airline GOL and Gogo agreed to launch Gogo TV this year on the carrier’s fleet of 119 737s.
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.
Virgin Atlantic’s 787 fleet will be grounded longer than expected. The carrier cannot get its Rolls Royce Trent-1000 engines replaced quickly enough and is now set to lease additional aircraft to fill in the shortfall. This means a decidedly different passenger experience for some flights and routes.
Lufthansa released more details on its new Business Class seat launching on the 777X fleet in 2020, plus changes to the existing offering, starting in 2018.
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.
High speed internet service is coming to the 747-8i in 2018. Lufthansa Technik won the contract to install the kit, but the airline customer was not named. Here are the likely candidates for such.
