If contract announcements and news from airshows in Paris, Geneva and Shanghai are any indication, business aviation connectivity is headed for clearer skies.  And as the second largest addressable market for aero satcom, this trend is welcome given clouds hanging over the sector since the market crashed in 2008-2009.  A quote from a Honeywell Aerospace representative summarized the focus on in-flight connectivity in the business jet market: “A couple of years ago, connectivity was in the top five, but now it’s number one”.

At the airshows, Gogo announced the global availability of its Gogo Vision IFE system, while Honeywell started offering almost 3 Mbps service over Swift Broadband.  Then, ViaSat’s Ku-band Yonder service was chosen by Gulfstream for its large business jets, while the operator said it would have HTS equipment certified for business jets early next year.  These announcements reflect the different needs of owners when discussing connectivity: it’s not a “one-size fits-all’ market.

The segment is indeed the 2^nd largest addressable aeronautical market for satcom behind general aviation with an estimated 20,000 airframes that could be outfitted with some form of connectivity. Growth is solid in the segment, and Bombardier recently upgraded its forecast for the segment to 9,000 new aircraft in the next decade.  Their numbers also say North America will see the highest deliveries with close to 40% of all aircraft followed by Europe, with bigger jets and China helping drive growth. These trends mirror NSR’s forecast in which the in-service units in North America, Europe and Asia represent 27%, 23% and 14.5% of the total, respectively.  

But to offer the broad range of solutions that the passengers and crew alike require, service providers such as Rockwell Collins (ARINC) and SatCom Direct have combined offerings that enable MSS (Iridium, Inmarsat) and FSS (Ku-band) and HTS (Ku- or Ka-band) connectivity to live side-by-side in a diverse portfolio of solutions.  MSS remains business jets’ favorite play as close to 12,400 in service units will generate $150 million by the end of 2024. 

But with growth being strongest in larger business jets, which NSR sees as a prime target for VSAT (Ku-band and HTS) capacity due to customer ability to pay and their thirst for always-on connectivity, we expect VSAT solutions to increase their penetration rate faster (from a much smaller base today).  

However, the move is on to help owners spend smarter with new products for least-cost routing, efficient operations via online diagnostics and troubleshooting, while providing higher performing-lower cost traditional services for voice (VoIP) and GSM (over Wi-Fi).  The low-cost services are not left behind as higher bandwidth demand is addressed via channel bonding and aggregation to give users faster speeds when they need it.  The example of ViaSat and ICG integrating their systems so customers can use Yonder for Internet and Iridium for voice or low data rate communications let them afford more diversity for both cabin and cockpit.

The various novelties take time to reach the market, but services providers have gained approval for installation of their hardware on a host of airframes of all sizes, from the Cessna 550 through the Gulfstream G450 to the larger Dassault F7X.  And given the replacement aircraft will grow to about 25% of the new deliveries in the next decade, it is important to ensure type-approval for customers that already have a solution and are looking for an easy upgrade path.

Amongst all these new solutions hitting the market, there remains the valid question of comparing satellite connectivity to air-to-ground (ATG) solutions and there, the answer is not settled.  Business aviation was the fastest growing segment for Gogo last year adding 5 times more systems in this segment than in commercial aviation.  It knows ATG bandwidth is constrained unless new spectrum is allocated, but the signing of a major program for fractional ownership operator NetJets to outfit 650 aircraft with its Gogo Vision on its ATG network is a sign that anything below 3 Mbps is still sufficient for most users.  The operator has already installed ATG on more than 2,800 aircraft, and the addition of new Swift Broadband units and its leadership among Iridium resellers (more than 5,000) certainly points to a large number of users satisfied with connectivity below what FSS and HTS providers have to offer.

Bottom Line

Connectivity has gone up the ladder of priorities for owners and users of business jets, while recent aircraft delivery forecasts show greater growth.  For aeronautical satcom, this means the biz jet segment will grow at a faster rate than previously expected as users’ need to remain ‘online-in-the-air’ grow in part due to more solutions available.  In the end, the higher number of connectivity options and the recent deals announced are proof that the sky is clearing for business jet connectivity.