Thales’ Glenn Latta.
The Thales regional Ka-band inflight connectivity trial with Vueling Airways in Spain has been delayed, thanks to the Spanish authorities.
Speaking at the APEX Expo in Portland, Oregon, Thales InFlyt Experience CEO Glenn Latta said they were still waiting for the necessary permissions and paperwork from the local aviation authority.
“We expected to get going in July,” Latta said. “It is a real shame, but there has been a backlog in paperwork ever since the Germanwings incident.” On March 24 2015, Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew Germanwings’ Flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
Thales InFlyt Experience has equipped two of Vuelings’s Airbus A320 aircraft with its Ka-band equipment and has plans to equip two more. Telefonica has been responsible for integrating the Thales’ (formerly LiveTV) onboard systems and high-speed satellite terminals from ViaSat, with the Eutelsat AIR ACCESS mobile service.
When the trial gets going, typical speeds are likely to be around 20Mbps to each passenger, but could be even higher – even into the low to mid 30s.
More than 330 aircraft are currently flying in the US with the Thales Ka-band system and the company is keen to roll out the regional model, which can deliver at least 12Mbps to each passenger, to European carriers using the Eutelsat KA-SAT satellite.
Speaking about Thales future use of Inmarsat’s new Ka-band GX system, Latta said that it expects Air Caraibes to enter into service with the equipment in 2016. He said that its Qatar Airways deployment would be on a similar timescale.
Latta said that Ka – either regional or global –was the way to go. “If you can’t offer passengers video streaming they’ll have a very poor passenger experience,” he said.
“Data rates just continue to climb and airlines are going to have to choose future-proof technologies to keep up. I expect the usage per device to go up 10-fold over the next decade,” Latta concluded.
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