Originally published by Space Intel Report on September 26, 2024. Read the original article here.

PARIS — The decision by Air France and United Airlines to move their in-flight-connectivity service to SpaceX Starlink starting in mid-2025 offers further proof that Starlink has been able to negotiate a path between offering a formal service-level agreement (SLA) and an informal “best efforts” commitment.

Both airlines are also taking the cue from Delta and offering in-flight connectivity — in Delta’s case, from Viasat and Hughes Network Systems — free of charge to customers in all classes.

Air France, which in 2018 hired Anuvu to provide Wi-Fi on parts of its fleet, said it is retrofitting all its aircraft, regional and long-haul, with Starlink. Air France’s decision was one of the hallway talking points at World Space Business Week (WSBW), held here Sept. 16-20 and organized by Novaspace Summits. Air France formally announced the deal on Sept. 26.

Air France followed United’s Sept. 16 announcement that it would be installing Starlink on more than 1,000 aircraft and removing existing equipment. Air France in 2018 signed a long-term contract with Global Eagle, since renamed Anuvu, which will now be replaced with Starlink.

The decision to move to Starlink was a blow to Paris-based Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO constellation, which is now in the market competing for airline business. Panasonic Avionics is a major in-flight connectivity customer for OneWeb.

Starlink has made clear it will not provide a Committed Information Rate commitment on service quality. But as was shown in its agreement with agricultural equipment manufacturer Deere, announced in January, Starlink is able to promise that it will prioritize its biggest customers if ever the service encounters bandwidth traffic jams.

That was enough for Deere, and apparently was enough for United and Air France.

A highly contended service may be unlikely in a large U.S. or Brazilian farm, but it’s another story for planes on heavily trafficked routes or over busy airports or seaports where large clusters of Starlink commercial users are likely to be.

Nick Galano, head of the aviation business at Starlink, said Starlink has already demonstrated its ability to launch a large number of increasingly powerful satellites — a chore made easier because SpaceX uses its own Falcon 9 rocket — at a cadence that is unprecedented in the space industry.

Addressing the conference on Sept. 17, Galano said Starlink had over 300 terabits of capacity and its “continuing to increase that with launches of more satellites every few days. We have about 2,500 aircraft under contract now.” That figure likely does not include the United deal, which was known at the time but not yet made public.

“In terms of capacity, we can provide over 100 times what all the legacy systems have provided,” Galano said. “Previously you needed to keep an eye on the number of people using the applications. Now that constraint is gone. And we have steerable beams and can continue to launch capacity and put it over the places that matter, whether that is dense hubs ore over the poles or the trans-Atlantic routes.”

Viasat reported having 3,750 commercial aircraft equipped with its Ka-band broadband service, delivered from large satellites in geostationary orbit, plus 1,850 business aviation planes, as of June 30.

Viasat’s pitch has been that while it cannot match the lower latency afforded by low-orbit constellations, most web use is not latency-sensitive. In addition, it has said that global LEO constellations like Starlink will hit capacity ceilings over large airports and seaports. Viasat can train more capacity over these high-demand areas than can a LEO constellation operator, the company has said.

Galano disputed the idea that Starlink eventually would be capacity constrained in high-demand areas.

“As far as capacity, it’s an opportunity to show what the innovation capability is,” Galano said. “It kind of comes down to whether you can launch more satellites and put more [capacity] in the sky. This has been our bread and butter, being able to launch that capacity with a continuous upgrade. We have been able to provide that density anywhere and everywhere the the demand is.”

Glenn Latta, head of in-flight connectivity implementation at Delta, said the airline’s main routes are 90% covered with free Wi-Fi using the Viasat solution, with another 400 aircraft in Delta’s regional fleet to be connected in 2025.

“At Delta we are in the middle of a 1,200-aircraft retrofit program,” Latta said. “We take off the old, put on the new. The aircraft is taken out of service and no airline likes to do that.”

He said Delta has added 3 million new members to its SkyMiles loyalty program “by offering our free internet access. It also gives us the ability to create special offers and a better connection with our customers. Because we have that connection, we can sponsor with partners, like T-Mobile, Paramout+, American Express, to deliver curated offers to increase that level of engagement.”

It’s here that any drop in service quality will cause problems for the airlines, whose customers are not just the connected passengers, but the advertisers and partners that are paying for access to those customers.

“They are there to monetize you and your seat,” said Josh Marks, chief executive of Anuvu. “The passenger becomes the product and the airlines are selling you to third-party sponsors and partners, just like Google and Facebook do terrestrially.” Marks did not address the loss of the Air France business, which had not yet been made public.

Latta said passenger connectivity use is increasing by 20% a year, meaning Delta and other airlines need to double their capacity every four years, making retrofit decisions even more painful.

“The challenge with us in the industry is that today, here is the connectivity used, but we don’t know what the customers are going to do four years down the road. The last thing we want to do is retrofit the aircraft.”

Originally published by Space Intel Report on September 26, 2024. Read the original article here.