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Business Jet Market Enjoys a Boon in New In-flight Connectivity Options

Business aviation is a booming market for in-flight connectivity.

One in every four U.S. flights is not a Delta or American commercial jet, but a private plane, a trend begun during Covid and continuing with so many commercial planes grounded or delayed because of labor shortages.

As more businesspeople and high-net-worth individuals choose to fly privately, their insatiable appetite for broadband connectivity shows no sign of diminishing.

“It used to be that connectivity was a nice to have on the aircraft. Today, it has become a requirement, both in terms of the sale of an aircraft and in terms of operation,” says Michael Skou Christensen, chief commercial officer, Business Aviation and Maritime for Satcom Direct. “Today, people expect to be able to consume content in real time, whether it’s for business or for leisure.”

A business jet radome modified to feature a satellite connectivity antenna. Standardaero

“We don’t think this demand is going to be slowing down anytime soon,” adds Sergio Aguirre, a 15-year veteran of Gogo, Inc., who assumed the role of president and chief operating officer in April.

Doubling of IFC Market

In-flight connectivity (IFC) on business jets is set to grow by 50% in the next decade, according to industry analyst firm Euroconsult, which estimates that the number of business jet aircraft will reach 36,500 by 2031. Last year, private plane use reached its highest level on record with 3.3 million business aircraft taking off, according to aviation data research firm Wingx.

And what these elite flyers expect is high-speed connectivity to mirror their always-on broadband experiences on the ground. Previous generations looked at connectivity as a business tool. For the current generation, “it's a way of life,” Aguirre observes.

In a survey conducted at the end of 2021 with 450 participants in the corporate aviation market, Gogo concluded that digital natives are now its core users. A key finding: Millennials and GenX now comprise two-thirds of its customer base.

As the type of in-flight internet-enabled applications business jet passengers and flight crews are using become increasingly bandwidth intensive, how are service providers responding?

Business jet passengers increasingly want to use new smart phone or tablet technologies such as streaming, video-conferencing and other bandwidth intensive applications. Gogo Business Aviation

“There’s a lot more of a productivity focus among business travelers,” notes Claudio D’Amico, business area global director for Viasat.

He says among athletes and entertainers, it’s all about streaming. “Their expectation is to be able to stream video and do FaceTime or Zoom calls on the aircraft,” he says.

Tying Connectivity to Operational Costs

The industry is focused on delivering a connected passenger experience that also aligns with business jet owners’ operational costs, experts agree. That approach differs dramatically from the way commercial airlines acquire and pay for connectivity.

For example, Delta Air Lines makes connectivity decisions for all its passengers whereas in business aviation, each owner-operator /flight department decides on the best connectivity solution for their needs. Because of this, business jet owners enjoy more flexibility, and they innovate and adopt IFC at a faster rate compared with their commercial-aviation counterparts, contends Aguirre.

“When a corporation sees this as a real business tool that adds to their bottom line, it's a lot easier to close the ROI,” he explains.

Business aviation IFC service providers have adjusted their service plans and offerings to the segment amid growth in demand for bandwidth and capacity in-flight. Gogo Business Aviation

Fueled by new low-orbiting satellite constellations and 5G advances on the ground, IFC players are stepping up their game, offering more flexible data plans that include unlimited data and streaming to meet the unique needs of the fastest-growing segment of the aviation market.

“People are looking for value per flight, not for the cheapest price,” Satcom Direct’s Christensen says, “We’re working with Inmarsat to tell our customer, ‘You don’t have to think about the different levels of speeds anymore.”

To illustrate, he notes how Intelsat has been able to provide customers “power by the hour” in what is a full-capability, unlimited-usage plan aligned with the number of hours that they fly on a yearly basis.

“We offer service plans designed to meet the operational profile of the aircraft,” says D’Amico, noting that Viasat’s satellite-based service plans target both regional and global business jet customers.

Because Viasat is vertically integrated – serving as a satellite operator that builds all its ground terminals and manages the network – it can offer more flexible plans. Its packages start at $2,795 per month with 15 gigabytes per month all the way up to speeds of over 100 megabits a second.

“Today across all our service plans, we offer the same performance,” he adds. “Owning the satellite and managing the network gives us the flexibility to control the way that we can deliver the best performance and meet customer needs.”

The company currently covers over 90% of international business aviation flight paths with its Ka-band and near-global coverage for Ku-band.

Viasat remains focused on GEO satellite investments to bring even greater throughput to its business jet and other airborne and terrestrial customers. ViaSat-3, the company’s next-generation trio of ultra-high-capacity satellites, will each deliver one terabyte of capacity and, once fully deployed, will offer global coverage. The first ViaSat-3 satellite is scheduled for launch in January with the other two following one every six months.

Air-to-ground network provider SmartSky Networks offers business aviation service plans starting at $2,995 with 5 GB of monthly data all the way to $6,995 monthly for 50 GB of monthly data, with the company recently announcing that its mobile broadband network was live nationwide, according to a July 27 press release.

Gogo, already the dominant business aircraft connectivity market provider, continues to invest in its air-to-ground 5G networks as well as forging new partnerships to take advantage of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) connectivity, which will enable the company to expand its service offerings globally.

Currently, nearly 3,000 business aircraft fly with Gogo’s AVANCE™ L5 or L3 inflight internet and entertainment system. More than 3,500 additional aircraft rely on its ATG systems and more than 4,500 aircraft access Gogo’s narrowband service worldwide through satellite connectivity. The company’s lowest plan is offered at $99 per hour, with monthly data plans that range as low as $1,895 for 1 GB a month, to unlimited bandwidth and streaming at $9,995 a month.

Gogo contends that its 5G offering is superior to GEO solutions in the business cabin because it offers “much lower latency at a fraction of the cost of GEO connectivity,” Aguirre says. The company has also lowered the minimum altitude for connecting passenger devices to on-board Wi-Fi from the industry standard of 10,000 feet to 3,000 feet. Gogo achieved this by increasing the density of its ground-based network.

“This has made a tremendous difference” with customers from Cirrus, Pilatus and the HondaJet, because it allows them to have inflight connectivity for 15 or 20 minutes longer,” says the Gogo leader.

Gogo is continuing to deploy towers for its next generation 5G in-flight connectivity network in the U.S., as pictured here. Gogo Business Aviation

Given that the average flights of these smaller business aircraft are an hour and a half, the additional uptime “has really closed the value proposition for [investing in IFC] with many owner operators and fleet operators,” Aguirre explains.

Reaching Global Business Travelers

While there is a universal desire for connectivity, regardless of the aircraft size, business operators also are looking for global service.

“In today’s world we are globally connected, and customers expect to have this user experience across the entire globe,” says Christensen, who applauds the approach of both Inmarsat and Intelsat to deliver a user experience that is the same across their entire footprint. He says the days of having to choose a speed or data allocation plan is going away in favor of unlimited usage.

At EBACE, Gogo announced its new global broadband solution leveraging OneWeb’s LEO network. The Gogo new LEO service is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Hughes, which supplies the modem technology and the ground-based technology for OneWeb, has been selected by Gogo to develop the Electronically Steerable Antenna (ESA) for its broadband offering. According to Aguirre, the partners were able to overcome technology obstacles by taking a systems level approach, which he credits to helping them design an antenna sized to address small jets through large jets in a form factor of 11 x 24 x 2 inches.

Satcom Direct also has developed an ESA with its antenna partner, QEST, Quantenelektronische Systeme GmbH, a worldwide market leader in aeronautical antennas. Its Plane Simple fuselage-mounted antenna, which works over the OneWeb network, also supports smaller bizjet frames, the company announced during EBACE 2022. The company’s Plane Simple Antenna Ku-band hardware is priced from $235,000, the company stated.

Pressed to disclose actual pricing for airtime services, Satcom Direct declined to give specifics, citing that offers are customized, which “makes it difficult to give prices as they are dependent on so many variables.”

Navigating Continued Supply Chain Challenges

Without question, the future remains bright for business aircraft connectivity given the operational travails facing commercial airlines and the continued demand for travel and connectivity among on-the-go executives and high-net-worth individuals.

Some industry watchers warn that supply chain disruptions that rocked the aviation industry after Covid remain a gating factor for these IFC systems since they depend on chips and other technology that is in short supply around the globe.

“Our number one concern has been hardware availability,” says Tony Brancato, president of Standard Aero’s Business Aviation division. Standard Aero Is a leading MRO provider specializing in engine and airframe maintenance, and other engineering services from its three facilities in Springfield, Illinois, Augusta, Georgia, and Houston, Texas.

To overcome longer lead times, Brancato says his company is working closely with IFC hardware and service providers to plan further out and to schedule multiple upgrades – not just the IFC system – when the planes are scheduled for IFC installs.