Recently in Business Aviation Category

Whether it was Dassault's in-house aircraft interiors solutions for the Falcon line or Design Q's work on a Bulgaria BAe-146, aircraft interiors rocked in Dubai (as did the Saab laser-guided missile defense system - now that's a big gun!) .

Jon Ostrower, aka Flightblogger, joined me in wrapping up day one of the Dubai air show.

Hats off to Aircell for taking advantage of the momentum behind the Dubai air show (#DXB09) by announcing a new sales and service rep for the Middle East.

Shoukry Shokralla will be responsible for supporting existing operators of Aircell's SwiftBroadband (SBB)-supported, Thrane & Thrane-powered airborne connectivity solution, which the US firm believes is well suited for the region. He will also assist prospective customers with their needs.

Unlike other SBB connectivity providers, which largely focus on in-flight mobile phone calls, messaging and email, Aircell focuses on offering "e-mail and light Internet services" for the business jet community. Telephone calls are made over Aircell's Axxess integrated cabin handsets.
 
In the USA, Aircell's main business, both in commercial and business aviation, is centered on its air-to-ground (ATG)-based high-speed Internet system.

But will Aircell start offering a similar SBB solution to the commercial sector? I wonder if Aircell's international airline customers, such as American, Delta, United and US Airways, wouldn't be well-placed to consider offering SBB on overseas flights.

Hey, British Airways is already doing it via an agreement with OnAir!!!
 

Design Q wants to transform luxury travel, and it just might do that with its new futuristic modular heliport design. Read the entire story at the following link. But check out Design Q's other blueprints, exclusive to Flight (below).

You'll see that while Design Q is happy to serve the low-cost market with solutions like MAXCABIN, it also knows how to reach the high-end market too (these are ex-Jaguar guys after all)!

Here's a fun fresh explanatory quote from Design Q co-founder Howard Guy:

"These large pods are designed to be self sufficient 'lounges' with water, power, receptions areas and lounge facilities so in any terrain -.middle of Russia, middle of China, middle of Saudi Arabia, it offers a comfortable transfer port for helicopter travel.

"The four outer pods act as holding lounges then raise up to the Heli deck once the helicopter has landed allowing comfortable boarding on the same level out of the heat of the sun or in monsoon!

"We are in a position to start building these for discerning commercial or private customers. I also see a great opportunity for VIP transfers for the London Olympics."

Panasonic Avionics likes to do things BIG. That's why the in-flight entertainment and communications (IFEC) giant, which is bringing its eXConnect Ku-band connectivity solution to market, is offering business jet operators a special eXTraBandwidth package, which "provides a tiered offering of guaranteed, consistent bandwidth for high quality communications, such as dedicated voice, video conferencing and other bandwidth-critical applications".
 
I recently spoke to Panasonic vice-president, global communications services David Bruner  about the firm's eXTraBandwidth offering. No, I didn't ask him who came up with this peculiar combination of upper and lower case letters for eXTraBandwidth. Next time.
 
Here is Bruner in his own (gently paraphrased) words:

It's typical in the private aviation business for operators to buy certain programmes that give them a certain amount of minutes or megabits per second and if they use more, they pay a higher fee.

But what's different with eXTraBandwidth is, if for example you were to do a lot of voice calls or video conferencing and you need higher bandwidth and very consistent throughput and you can't afford to drop the connection, we can offer this service whereby you tell us how much bandwidth you want and we guarantee that amount of service to you while you're flying.

For that type of business jet market, where time is precious, owners/operators are willing to pay a significant amount of money for the best services. Yet they haven't ever been able to get really good communications services. It has never really matched up to the office experience.

Some folks are using older Inmarsat systems, and we're thinking they'd go to SwiftBroadband (SBB), but we can offer the same capital cost to the airplane and significantly less service costs, and corporate executives can now do anything they could do in their office as they could on the plane.

They can use their own cell phones on board the aircraft, or use phones on the aircraft. There are all different kinds of options. They can have installed a VoIP handset that's the airplane phone plus use their own phone. The eXTraBandwidth offering is for anything they want to do on the aircraft.

An operator could say - we want to lock in two or three megabits/second to our airplane every time we fly and we want that service guaranteed. That is really like having a DSL line to the airplane and that is something that has never before been offered to the marketplace.

Most people will still go for the regular plans because they find out the [basic eXConnect] service is excellent, but you'll have a few people - royalty and heads of state - that will really want this eXTraBandwidth when they fly.

Security is really important in this market. We have the ability to just present [governments] with a pipe and they can put whatever encryption they want on the airplane. This can really give them the comfort level they want to use the communication line for any kind of communication they want to and not worry about the privacy or that kind of stuff.

Side note -  Connexion by Boeing's service is understood to continue to fly on a variety of government aircraft, including Air Force One. I wonder if Obama would like some eXTraBandwidth.

Earlier this year, US technology firm Ambit Corp filed a lawsuit against Delta Air Lines and Aircell claiming patent infringement regarding the provision of Internet access onboard aircraft.

I debated whether to report on this event and ultimately decided to write this erudite paragraph, ahem:

Marsha, I mean Aircell, Aircell, Aircell. With all the news about Aircell, you might be wondering - what's up with Ambit's lawsuit against Aircell? Whose lawsuit? Ambit of course! If you want more details, I can dredge them up for ya. But, from what I hear, folks are not giving too much credence to this suit. Yeah, yeah, I know. Famous last words, right? Aircell says it does not comment on pending legislation. But I'm going to hazard a guess that Aircell did it's homework on this one.

Whether the suit has merit or not is beside the point right now. Why is that RWG?

Firstly, the legal action is still in play. Ambit president and co-founder Robert Crowley confirmed that much for me this morning. He declined further comment.
 
Secondly, I'm hearing that at least one airframer, Bombardier, is holding off on offering Aircell's air-to-ground (ATG)-based high-speed Internet system on its business aircraft until the case is settled.
 
As I reported in Flight magazine, two Learjet 60XRs equipped with Aircell's SwiftBroadband (SBB) solution - one outfitted in Bombardier's new "Red" interior and the other labelled "Black" - were on static display at the annual National Business Aviation Association meeting and convention in Orlando, Florida on 20-22 October (look closely at the pic above and you'll see the SBB antenna).

These birds were formerly destined for Jet Republic, which placed the largest ever SBB order and then went out of business (I am not suggesting one had anything to do with the other...cheeky monkey!).

A source on the ground at NBAA says Bombardier informed people at its booth that it is waiting to see how the Aircell patent lawsuit plays out before offering the ATG system on its business aircraft.

Needless to say, on hearing this bit of information, I knocked on everyone's door for comment.

Bombardier said only the following: "We haven't announced a supplier for connectivity."

A spokesman at Aircell's business aircraft division said: "On your question, unfortunately Aircell isn't able to comment on litigation or discussions that take place with its customers."

He did point out, however, that Aircell has scored some nice wins of late, including the newly-announced Hawker Beechcraft selection and a huge deal with Flight Options.

I also tapped Aircell's commercial side for comment (since Delta is named in the suit, and logic would dictate that if Ambit has a problem with Delta it might very well have a problem with other Gogo-equipped carriers).

A spokesman at Aircell's commercial division said: "Aircell cannot comment on pending litigation."

For more information about this case, read the following documents.

Ambit suit.pdf
Ambit suit 2.pdf
PatentSummaryInfo.doc

So, is Ambit's lawsuit against Aircell starting to bite? And is it time to take notice?

One industry insider, upon learning of the case in February, told me the following:
 

...the development is as surprising as it is disturbing, since it may be extended to other satellite-based aeronautical communications applications (e.g., GSM picocell) given its broad language and other mobile applications (e.g., maritime and land mobile) since the patent focuses on "vehicles" of all types.

Some fab IFEC stuff is coming out of NBAA right now.

Check out Flightglobal's special NBAA landing page for all the latest news, blogs and video from the show (IFEC-specific news is on Flightglobal's dedicated IFEC channel). This video from the show caught my eye. Yeah, it rocks.