September 2011 Archives

ERA director general Mike Ambrose believes that airlines both big and small will need to offer some form of connectivity to passengers within the next five years, including the intra-European operators that comprise ERA membership.

Speaking to Runway Girl at the ERA General Assembly in Rome, Ambrose said innovation in the cockpit will help drive equipage.

Key quote from Ambrose:

"What's happening now? Some guys are saying, 'to hell with [paper], we'll just give guys [pilots] an iPad. It's got all the flight bag in it. I don't know whether you bought a new car recently with a navigation system in it. You probably paid 2,000 Euro for a navigation system built into the car. [But] you can go out and buy a 140 Euro TomTom that does actually more than your navigation system in the car because TomTom provides web upgrades and that's what's happening with the use of the iPad. So I see that we're going to be putting lower cost [connectivity] systems in to allow people to carry on working. But it won't be fancy things. It will be the connectivity is there if you've got the piece of equipment [your own PED]."

But many ERA members are not yet convinced they will require even basic connectivity (the non-fancy stuff).

Bern-based SkyWork Airlines is among the more forward thinking amongst its European peers in terms of in-flight entertainment. The carrier currently distributes iPads - for free! - to passengers. "It's first come, first serve," said SkyWork CEO Tomislav Lang.

But will you eventually connect the iPads, I insisted? "No, no, that is not intended to be done," said Lang.

More on this topic later!!

After years of studies, global airline alliance group the Star Alliance has selected a common economy class seat architecture that will be jointly procured and installed on some member airlines.

"Yes, we are over the finish line with regard this," confirmed Star vice-president corporate office Christian Klick today at the Airline Business Alliances, Joint Ventures and Partnerships conference in Rome. "We will have the first purchases [from] three carriers for that baseline seat."

"From the beginning, we always said that with the cabin product, the airline should keep its own identity," said Klick, noting that while a baseline architecture has been selected, airlines will pick their own colors, cushions, IFE. But he notes that the move will result in a reduction in maintenance costs that comes from mass production.

More details will be released either today or tomorrow!

Flightglobal in March reported that Air China was among the Star members participating in a seat study. The airline set up a special aircraft seating simulation zone at Beijing Capital International airport for the research.

The good news:

After shuttering its Connexion unit at the end of 2006, Boeing has confirmed it will offer Panasonic's Ku-band-supported Global Communications Suite (GCS) on its 777s; Turkish Airlines will be the first to take delivery on 23 September.

The bad news:

Boeing has not announced a plan for connecting its long-delayed 787 twinjet (it may be focused on other things right now...like a little party with ANA).

The ugly:

Turkish Airlines has sent along some snaps of what appears to be its portal for the Panasonic in-flight Internet/IPTV service, which the airline has branded 'Planet Entertainment'. Somebody needs to call IDEO stat!

A source tells RWG that Gore has been selected as the new provider of leaky feeder cables to AeroMobile, after cables from a former supplier failed flam tests. I've asked Gore for comment. Gore's web site says: "GORE Cable Based Antennas for Aircraft and Mining are multiple standard radiating coax cables that set the standard for small size and low weight." I'm still trying to track down the former supplier. Was it Gore? :-) No word yet on whether lawsuits have been filed. If you have a tip, you know where to find me.
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ORIGINAL BLOG:

What the blazes is happening in the world of aircraft systems certification?

Last year, we learned that Honeywell Phase 3 liquid crystal displays are susceptible to EMI, a discovery made when Gogo's in-flight Wi-Fi system was being tested for STC on Boeing 737NG aircraft (and long after the systems had been installed on lots of 737NGs and 777s).

Now comes today's revelation that some leaky feeder cables on aircraft equipped with AeroMobile/Panasonic's eXPhone solution have not passed flam, and EASA is preparing paperwork! The cable, which provides a signal to passengers' mobile phones, is not hard to spot - it's what is running down the length of the aircraft. See this pic from AeroMobile's web site.




Below you can see AeroMobile's full rack. The AeroMobile equipment (three avionics units in this shot) is the equipment to the left of the orange boxes. The two thick black cables are the leaky feeder cables. I wonder how easy/difficult it is to pull these cables out and replace them. Please comment if you can shed some light on that MRO question.




So, how the devil did these systems receive certification?
 
It's a question that nobody in this industry likes to address on record. So back to sources I go.

Says a source: "The key takeaway from all of this stuff is that it doesn't matter if you put a system on board aircraft via STC or linefit. You need to do complete tests. You should do them on every single installation."

Is the system manufacturer or the airframer ultimately to blame?

"There could be fault on both sides. Was the equipment fully qualified and was all relevant testing done by the manufacturer and the next question would be, if that's so, was all the relevant cert testing done by the airframer," says another source.

As mentioned in my article about the AeroMobile leaky feeder, international carriers Emirates, Air New Zealand and V Australia are among the carriers affected.

On last count, some 86 Emirates aircraft carried eXPhone, though the carrier says it believes only a small number of aircraft will require replacement cables.

Last year AeroMobile said four V Australia 777s had full eXPhone provisions installed by Boeing from the factory (trays, wiring, circuit breakers and leaky feeder cable).

Air New Zealand's status has been a bit tougher to nail down, but it was supposed to receive its first eXPhone-fitted 777 late last year.

Then the Honeywell issue hit. And now the AeroMobile leaky feeder issue. It makes me wonder how Boeing stands on fitting GSM solutions to its aircraft right now...

And don't even get me started on Koito and it's rubber stamp! 

Here in the United States, passengers are growing increasingly accustomed to having in-flight Wi-Fi at their disposal. Much of the credit for equipping the US fleet goes to Gogo, which in 2006 bought an exclusive 3MHz broadband license for air-to-ground (ATG) services; made the service cheap and cheerful for airlines (even financing installs); and, let's be frank, is driving every last ounce of capacity out of its network.

However, Row 44 has also gained ground. Its Ku-band satellite-supported high-speed Internet solution is installed on some 100 Southwest Airlines aircraft, and installs are slated to ramp up in the coming months, according to Row 44. The California-based firm has also forged some pretty impressive IPTV and streaming video partnerships. These deals will play a crucial role as Row 44 readies for its next phase of development - a multi-media platform that seeks to duplicate in the air the type of entertainment and communication experience that passengers are accustomed to viewing and engaging in on the ground.

I received an early viewing of the new Row 44 platform at APEX and while I cannot tell you specific details (including the price points being mulled), it absolutely blew me away. Yes, I had a "holy shit" moment. I truly believe Southwest passengers are going to be awed by what they can see and do and how everything is packaged and priced; and the low-cost carrier has a real shot at generating ROI. A real shot.

Anyone who reads this blog knows I am a huge fan of Gogo. I've started booking my flights based on whether or not the carrier offers Gogo fleet-wide. I flew a Gogo-equipped Alaska Airlines Boeing 737NG to APEX in Seattle, and I happily paid to access Wi-Fi on my Mac, while taking advantage of a free promo that allowed me to access it on my iPhone in exchange for giving my email address to a credit card company.

I suspect I'll be receiving emails from that credit card company soon. But it will have been worth it. I was so bloody productive on that flight that my fingers never stopped moving. A flight attendant even stopped to take in the action, noting, in essence, that I was typing like a maniac (if this gig doesn't work out, perhaps I could turn to secretarial work or the circus).

That said, Gogo's network is clearly under strain. Since I live in the Matrix that is the TweetDeck, I monitor what people are saying on Twitter about Gogo. Lately I've been seeing the following types of tweets all too regularly:

"In flight wifi would be much cooler if it was fast enough to do anything. Brutal!"

"Flying somewhere over the middle of the country trying to download email with @Gogo but it's as painfully slow as the #emmys last night."

Those are some of the kinder negative tweets. Gogo recently admitted on Twitter that it does not support video so YouTube and Netflix are generally a no-go or a slow go.

That's not to say that Gogo doesn't have a plan. It will soon roll out ATG-4, which promises to be four times faster. Virgin America is the first airline to announce it will use the service.  

But Gogo's options for expanding capacity do not end at ATG-4. Qualcomm has tabled a proposal to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to use Ku spectrum for air-to-ground use in a shared manner, so it's possible that we might see a tie-up in the future. "It's possible" that the two firms could work together, says Gogo CTO Anand Chari, noting, however, that the Ku antenna being tested at Gogo's Itasca headquarters has nothing to do with that process. Still, it's pretty cool to think ATG could get a Ku boost.

Row 44, meanwhile, believes its larger Ku pipe to aircraft will have no trouble supporting all the high-bandwidth functionality it intends to offer through the multi-media platform. 

"We don't run into bandwidth issues because we can turn on more transponders so our ability to add more beams throughout not only the country but around the world makes it virtually unlimited. In the aircraft, which has always been the question people have asked, we've seen upwards of 150 simultaneous users doing different things including streaming movies and all kinds of activities, so we're not worried about that," says Row 44's head marketer Howard Lefkowitz.

"Having the big pipe and the ability to expand it is crucial to do things that are going to be coming down the pike as we go forward as bandwidth applications continue to matriculate ever upward."

But are we insatiable, I ask? "Yes, exactly, we want more, more, faster, better, cheaper," says Lefkowitz.

As such, Row 44 has a migration path to eventually offer Ka-based connectivity. But Lefkowitz doesn't see a jump from Ku to Ka any day soon.

"The interesting thing about Ku and Ka is that Ka really doesn't exist yet per say. It's not commercially available. It wasn't even designed necessarily for the mobile environment, particularly for a plane going 600 milers an hour. We are involved in it; we are engaged in it. We have a migration path including changing out the aperture and a few other items that we would be able to do. When it's ready, if it's ready, we will be there. We are developing it and engaged every day. The difference is there is a here and a now, and our customers realize that in order to compete they have to be engaged in the process. That's why we have the migration path. Everybody talks about Ka. There hasn't even been an application with the FAA or FCC to be able to do it."

He likens talk about Ka to "talking about having a molecular reconstructor replacing the airline industry. So far it doesn't exist but I've seen it on Star Trek."

Because of the nature of Row 44's Ku-band pipe, the company's business is not limited to Southwest Airlines and aircraft flying domestically in the United States. European operator Norwegian offers Row 44 on its Boeing 737NGs. SAS, on the other hand, intends to bring Panasonic Avionics' competing Ku system, called eXConnect, to its fleet.

Panasonic has also secured partners for IPTV and showcased its own solution at APEX. Pictured left is Panasonic's IPTV offering being tested on a BBJ testbed aircraft in flight.

Since a dedicated air-to-ground network does not exist across Europe, carriers in the region must choose between Ku or L-band-supported connectivity now or wait for Ka. But they now have a better choice of services in each band (and will have a choice in Ka as ViaSat and Inmarsat will compete against each other).

I'm going to talk about intra-European carriers' options for in-flight Wi-Fi next week at the ERA General Assembly in Rome. If you're planning to attend - or will be at Airline Business' Alliances conference in Rome just prior to ERA - please flag me down, say 'hello', and let me chew your ear off about in-flight Wi-Fi. Because, like the growing number of bandwidth-heavy users in the United States, I'm just as hungry.

Vision Systems has kicked up its advertising in advance of #NBAA11 in Las Vegas, and is now touting the fact that its IFE system is offered on the Sukhoi Superjet, and will be launched by Superjet customer Interjet of Mexico.

Meanwhile, on a complete tangent, let me just say that I know I need a new camera, and that many of my videos look like the lens has been dipped in Vaseline. :-)

Heading into APEX, speculation was rife that Bluebox Avionics - the company commissioned to turn iPads into portable in-flight entertainment systems for Jetstar- had 'jailbroken' the systems, circumventing Apple's business case and IP, and in turn pissing off Cupertino executives.

But one must be very careful when trying to sort fact from fiction (and the gray area in between), especially when it involves Apple, which has not been vocal about Bluebox's plan or the IFEC industry's larger agenda to bring iPad-based in-flight entertainment solutions to airlines.

I asked Apple to comment in advance of APEX, and the company politely declined. So I posed some questions to Bluebox on the show floor (see below). The company's joint MD David Brown asserts that everything is okay with Apple, and that Bluebox is eyeing October to finally roll out iPad 2s with the iOS 5 on Jetstar's fleet. (But I think it's fair to say that the specifics of Bluebox's role are still a bit murky. What do you think?)
 
Meanwhile, I saw far more Samsung Galaxy tabs being displayed as portable IFE than iPads at APEX, a consequence no doubt of the open nature of the Android platform (and the fact that Samsung is formally engaged with the market!).

The industry is mixed over whether Apple's lawsuits against Samsung will have an impact on their business plans outside of Germany, but most folks didn't think the suits would pose a big problem. Time will tell.

I saw a lot of amazing technology on the floor of the APEX show this week, and I'll roll out news, blogs and video of it all in the coming days and weeks here on RWG and on the Flightglobal IFEC/interiors channel. But my late day interview with Thales, captured on my iPhone, really wowed me. Thales is looking seriously at offering this solution for premium cabins.

In-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC) has come a long way baby, and airlines and travelers are taking serious notice. In fact, IFEC has never been hotter!!

As industry executives from all over the world prepare to descend on Seattle for next week's Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) conference and exhibition - which will no doubt break some records - Eezeer Data Lab has graciously created the following infographics for RWG, which show the evolution of the industry and how airlines finally understand that IFEC has become the cost of doing business.

The third infographic, in particular, speaks volumes about the buzz that IFEC is receiving on social media.

If you're an IFEC vendor and you're not actively tweeting, may I suggest you get your butt in gear (meant in the nicest possible way, of course :)? You could use Hootsuite or TweetDeck to make sense of Twitter (I recommend setting columns for the words 'in-flight', 'inflight' and 'IFEC'). If you're tweeting from APEX, remember to use the hashtag #APEX11 (and set a column for that hashtag as well) so that you can see and participate in the full conversation. I hope to see you in Seattle but if I don't, I hope to see you on Twitter!

Update: Row 44 released the following statement this morning. Love, love, love the BBC :-)

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Original blog

In-flight connectivity service provider Row 44 is poised to announce a series of new relationships in the live IPTV space.

CNBC, MSNBC, Versus (to be known as NBC Sports Network from early next year), Bloomberg, Fox News and Fox Business are some of the partners to be announced, says a source.

This is in addition to the Row 44's teaming last week with Major League Baseball to provide live streaming of a couple thousand games via Row 44's Ku-band pipe.

The California-headquartered company's goal is to offer a palate of choices to its airline customers both in the United States and around the world.

So, now that Row 44 customer Southwest Airlines has so many choices, I presume we'll here some regional titles for customer Norwegian soon, eh? BBC...

Boeing has delayed issuing a service bulletin (SB) to address the susceptibility of Honeywell Phase 3 displays to EMI, but that is not stopping the US airframer from prepping to deliver 777s equipped with in-flight connectivity systems.

Sources tell RWG that Boeing executives have internally accepted placarding of 777 cockpits as an interim solution until the Honeywell problem is resolved. The placards, like those used on Emirates' 777s and myriad Boeing 737NGs in the United States, will bear strict instructions that pilots are not to use connectivity on the flight deck.

Asked to comment on the situation late last month, a Boeing spokesman said: "It looks like the SB will be delayed until next year. I would contact the FAA about your placarding question." He noted that the FAA "decides what is acceptable and what isn't".

Touché.

So, which carrier will see connectivity fully linefit to its 777s first? Right now, Turkish Airlines is pacing to be the first. Certification of Panasonic Avionics' Ku-band satellite-supported eXConnect in-flight Internet solution is being done on the line and the data is expected to be handed off to Boeing CAS so that they can offer the service bulletin.

There is also light at the end of the tunnel for Panasonic partner AeroMobile, which saw linefits of its GSM/GPRS connectivity system - branded as eXPhone - stalled when the news about Honeywell Phase 3 displays came to light.

Apparently comfortable with the placarding solution, the FAA, I'm told, is not throwing serious roadblocks in the way of linefitting eXPhone, which is good news for Turkish and other eXPhone customers, which have been waiting for the schedule to get back on track.

And what does the FAA say? Silence is deafening.

A company called GeoRadio is launching this GPS-triggered in-flight entertainment solution at the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) conference and exhibition next week in Seattle. Cooooool.

All Nippon Airways recently unveiled the interiors of the Boeing 787s that will operate on its regional and domestic routes.

On seeing pictures of the 787's in-flight entertainment and seats, I was struck by how ancient everything looked. It all looks so very 2007, ahem.

Take a look at the following pics. The first shows Panasonic's new smart monitor (the strangely-named eco 9i) in a slimline seat and the other shows older generation Panasonic monitors installed on the new ANA 787.

The difference is stark. I also spy precious knee space that could be carved out of the ANA seat. Boeing, isn't it time to update your 787 catalog with the new integrated IFE/seats (and let airlines that have waited out the 787's long delay change their original order)?
 


(The left photo is from Panasonic stock and right photo is from Flightblogger's Flickr stream.)

German holiday carrier Condor is still planning to offer Lufthansa Systems' BoardConnect wireless in-flight entertainment to passengers, although the time frame for doing so has slipped a little bit to the right, RWG has learned.

The airline is in the process of taking over two aircraft from another airline, and refurbishing them with its own interiors. Once that project is finished, Lufthansa Systems will begin installing BoardConnect on one of the aircraft, a 767, and later on the rest of Condor's fleet.

"The equipment is ready," says a spokesman for Lufthansa Systems, a subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group. He adds that the launch "will definitely be within this year".
 
BoardConnect is based on a Wi-Fi network which passengers can log on to through seat-back screens or their own laptops, tablet PCs, smartphones or other WiFi-enabled devices to access a range of video and audio on demand, games and other content.

One of the big questions about wireless IFE is whether it can adequately support a plane-full of passengers using the service.

"Regarding the number of people who can use it, if you want, everybody can use it. Every access point we have to install can technically cover 100 devices, but to have redundancy, we are calculating about 60 devices only. So we are installing as many access point as there are groups of 60 people on board," says the Lufthansa Systems spokesman.

That's good news, especially since Lufthansa Systems has been tapped to bring wireless IFE to Virgin America's fleet.

Meanwhile, a vigorous discussion about wireless IFE has been happening over at the LinkedIn in-flight entertainment group.

Ken  Bantoft, co-Founder at Satcom Integration (and former EMS dude) notes:

"I'm m pretty sure this will gain traction, as it drastically lowers the cost for the airlines (installing IFE/AVOD Servers + Access points vs. complete seatback IFE system). The bigger question is will consumer grade WiFi (802.11n + future standards) work well enough in a high density environment like a cabin of 200+ people to provide the level of service required. Also - it solves my beef of being able to finish the movie at the hotel, since used to always miss the last 30 minutes if I was using onboard IFE :)

"802.11n WiFi will handle > 20 people, but not more than about 60 streaming users simultaneously. (Simple Math: 802.11n @ 300mbps / 2.5mbps per stream (SD streams) is 120 @ 100% efficiency. Assuming 50% efficiency and you have 60).

"As for what happens - depending on how well designed the system is, either everyone's quality will head into 'buffering...' hell, or the system should prevent new streams from starting 'Sorry, please try again later'. Adding access points will help with this, but at some point you hit saturation point of the airwaves and things start to fall down.

"There is a reason vendors are looking at 60ghz WiFi and other technologies for IFE equipment to solve this, but it's divergent technology, and takes us back to seat back equipment."

Of course, the honors for bringing the first wireless IFE system to market goes to Gogo, which recently launched its service on American Airlines 767s.