Emirates Sets Pace. Will Others Follow?

We are now in the middle of a hectic run of trade shows, which will put us in Hamburg, Germany, for Aircraft Interiors, moving on to San Diego for our eagerly anticipated Global Connected Aircraft Summit in June and finally to Boston for the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) Expo in September. The fact of the matter is that the connected airline market is moving on at a fair pace.

In one of our features, we talk to top Emirates executive Patrick Brannelly about the success story of the airline’s connectivity strategy. The airline recently reached an important milestone — going through 1 million connections a month on its fleet, with potential for up to 1.3 million connections a month by the end of the year. It is quite a staggering success story. Emirates has been one of the pioneers in in-flight connectivity for a number of years, and these numbers only go to underline that fact.

You will also find a couple other case studies. We look at how UPS Airlines is using data analytics to transport 5 billion packages.

We also look at how the San Diego Police Department helicopters are using connectivity to improve its operations.

We are now very much at the next phase of connectivity. With Emirates approaching full connectivity, it will be interesting to see what airlines do with this capability.

This and more will be key talking points at our Global Connected Aircraft Summit in June. We look forward to seeing most of you there. GCA Link