With Scandinavian Airlines getting ready for the Airbus A350, the airline has chosen to partner with Inmarsat and deploy is GX Aviation connectivity product for inflight broadband.
The upcoming Scandinavian Airlines Airbus A350 – Image, Scandinavian Airlines
The Airbus A350 aircraft will have GX Aviation (Global Express) integrates and delivers to the airline by the end of 2019, with long haul entry into service planned for
The aircraft has been named ‘Ingegerd Viking’ and will officially enter service on 28 January 2020, serving long-haul routes to destinations such as Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Beijing, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Before that, it will operate flights for the airline to build up operational hours on.
According to Inmarsat,
“GX Aviation’s unique proposition of fast, seamless global coverage was a key factor in its selection by SAS.”
As Inmarsat continues its GX Aviation network build-out, there should be extra capacity flying – with satellite launches due in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
In Quotes
Philip Balaam, President of Inmarsat Aviation,
“GX Aviation is already the gold standard for inflight broadband and our extensive long-term development plans for the service have been extremely well received by the aviation industry, as this contract win with Scandinavian Airlines has shown.
The superior capabilities of GX Aviation and its status as the only solution with global coverage was a perfect fit for the airline’s new Airbus A350 aircraft, which will cover high demand long-haul routes from Scandinavia to the United States and Asia. We look forward to working with the airline on the service’s rollout to passengers from early next year.”
Three providers for connectivity
It seems that Scandinavian Airlines continues to add to their connectivity portfolio with a third network provider, with their short-haul connectivity provided by Viasat using the Ka-band and Panasonic Aviation with a Ku band for the existing Airbus A330 and A340 fleets.
It’s interesting to see the slow movement away from Ku-band connectivity to Ka-band connectivity, which promises more bandwidth and less congestion than the Ku solutions that are out there.
What will matter is the passenger experience – providing its seamless between one Wi-Fi solution to another and the costs to use it are not outrageous, a move like this can only help the frequent and not so frequent flyer.
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