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Flightglobal's journalists and staffers are renowned in the aerospace industry for being among the hardest working, most dedicated and congenial group of people one could ever hope to meet. I'm not exaggerating when I say that some of the most thrilling moments of my life - and some of the most uproariously funny moments - happened during the near 12 years I have worked at this company. There were days, during conferences and air shows, that I thought my side was going to split open from laughing so hard with my British, American and Singaporean comrades, who, let it be stated for the record, have turned dry, sarcastic humor into an art form.

I am extraordinarily grateful for all the opportunities provided to me by Flightglobal - the ability to write for its esteemed magazine and online titles, to jump behind the shaky camera and in front of the (unforgiving) high-def camera, and to bounce around the aircraft static displays at some of the world's greatest air shows. More than anything, however, I am grateful for having been afforded the autonomy to write this blog uncensored.

It might surprise you to know that, during the early days, Flightglobal's decision to let its journalists blog was perceived by some industry stakeholders as risky. I'm sure a few of my managers questioned their own sanity after reading some of the more, errrr, indelicate posts that appeared on Runway Girl. But they never once told me to 'tone it down' or 'stop'. Nor did they ever take out the proverbial editing pen. Perhaps they figured they would be wasting their time in trying to tame a flame-haired Irish American. Whatever their reason for restraint, I thank them. 

Free to explore the parts of this industry that interested me the most - and to have some serious fun while doing so - I found myself gravitating towards, and writing about, the tremendous innovation happening in the world of in-flight entertainment and connectivity (IFEC), aircraft cabin interiors and the overall passenger experience. With a passion for this industry (a passion bordering on addiction, some might say), and a deep respect for the men and women who are bringing humanity back to air travel, I have accepted an offer to become Editor in Chief of the Airline Passenger Experience magazine and APEX media platform.

I am ecstatic to be able to take on this new challenge, and focus my energy on covering the passenger experience. But I will always cherish my time at Flightglobal and the lifelong friends I have made there. My final day at Flightglobal is tomorrow, 30 November. I'd like to thank all of the dedicated readers of this blog, who oscillate between giving high praise and doling out good tongue lashings. You know where to find me.

Panasonic Avionics shows off its new in-flight television service and reveals details about how it is building a critical mass of airline customers.

Having read my recent blog post, 'SOMEBODY is making money on in-flight connectivity', research firm Northern Sky Research (NSR) felt compelled to add a little color to its report about the Ku-band sector, and in so doing, dropped a few potential nuggets. Improperly installed antennas? Server overloads? Could this explain why some user experiences of Ku haven't been so rosy?

Here is what senior analyst  Claude Rousseau told RWG:

- NSR forecast is for a ten-year period and the planned installation rate for Ku-band in the next five years is the highest we've seen (not sure if this is historical but what we track is shipped and installed). The forecast is based on units installed only as these are (theoretically) generating traffic thus revenues, either from the cabin or from the crew. Thus we do not differentiate between revenues coming from the passengers or from the crew.
 
- The business models for commercial in-flight connectivity today is still very much in flux as you know, which is normal for an emerging service. I would love to have some hard numbers from the various models but it seems airlines and service providers are shy about that and these change from one airline to another. From what I gathered, most often the service providers sell the equipment + airtime (bandwidth) bundled together to airlines. Suffice it to say that the (bad) experience of 'giving' the equipment as OnAir did to Ryanair has put that model to rest  (if Row44 is paying for SW equipment, then too bad for them). Furthermore, our research shows that in the start-up phase, revenues from passengers will vary widely because of discounts and roll-out hiccups (improperly installed antenna, overload of servers, etc.).  NSR services revenues forecast is based on industry figures we've been able to gather through interviews and primary research for services on a per-unit basis (and again for all segments) which means that these may vary accordingly by region and by type of frequency (L- vs Ku-band).
 
- The equipment market is still very fragmented and prices are still high compared to annual revenues per antenna but there has been a fierce battle to bring it down substantially as more airlines have issued RFPs. Our data shows that over the past five years, this has come down by more than 40% for a typical Ku-band antenna system.

- Manufacturers of aeronautical equipment systems are making very little money in this if they remain pure players (thus your analysis is correct if it is strictly aimed at commercial airlines).  Unless they have a large fleet to equip, they often have other government or business jet revenue streams or are part of a larger group where satellite connectivity is a 'must' for the company to eventually tap passenger revenues (and also gain more legs from R&D develop from other segments). Many have 'admitted' indirectly that they are unable to rely so far on revenues from aeronautical equipment and 'branched-out' into other products or services for maritime (OnAir) and land-mobile (Starling) platforms, if they have not been acquired (ARINC by Viasat) or considered throwing in the towel altogether (MELCO).

- Finally, there is a misconception that long-haul flights will close the business case for commercial in-flight connectivity. NSR has been evaluating this market for 10 years and we continue to believe that regional routes will gather more revenues due to the larger fleets, but this will also mean more equipment to be installed and that is where industry efforts (eg. volume discounts) should go to keep the trends we see going forward.

SOMEWHERE OVER NEVADA: I'm on board a Virgin America Airbus A320 flying from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles, where the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) is holding a technical committee meeting this week at Walt Disney Studios.

Considering the fact that I'll be covering a conference about the airline passenger experience, I could hardly be flying on a more appropriate ambassador than Virgin America, which offers an award-winning in-flight entertainment system, Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi and, importantly, in-seat power.

As you'd expect, I'm making full use of the in-flight entertainment and connectivity on offer. I've ordered an Artisan cheese meal through the seat-back monitor and dutifully swiped my credit card; I've plugged my Macbook Pro into the in-seat power plug and it is juicing up while I write this blog and clear other work;  I've plopped down $12.95 for a Gogo session to stay connected, and I'm trying to catch up on snippets of my one trash TV indulgence, 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' on satellite television (easy now).

Unfortunately, the speed of Gogo on this flight is far from ideal. I've conducted a number of speed tests via www.pingtest.net - here's the latest result - but the tests are probably unnecessary. I need only jump onto any web site with bandwidth-heavy applications to ascertain that things are slooooooow going.
 
While I'm certainly grateful to be connected in flight - with the ability to tweet, post to FaceBook and access email - I'm not being nearly as productive as I had hoped.

For me, today's connection speed serves as yet another gentle reminder that, when it comes to bandwidth, we passengers can't get enough, and connectivity service providers are having a difficult time keeping up.

It certainly makes sense for Gogo - and other connectivity stakeholders - to offer a streaming video service to passengers as a means of drawing them away from a live connection when and where possible.

Equally, I can see why some airlines - including Virgin America - are not yet ready to cease offering embedded (or portable IFE) solutions, though Virgin America has tabled a plan to bring wireless IFE to passengers' own devices as well as new seat-back screens, a different direction than its current headend server-based embedded IFE offering.

At present, connectivity is largely augmenting IFE rather than replacing it, or is being offered on aircraft that traditionally did not offer IFE.

During the recent APEX conference and exhibition in Seattle, I talked to digEcor marketing director Adam Williams about some of these topics. Check out my interview below.

I'll have an opportunity to dive into a fuller discussion this week with digEcor and other players in the field, as I'm moderating the wireless and portables panel at the APEX technical committee meeting.

Can we speed up Virgin America? I want to get to LA! :-)

[Gently amended to add a few more names to the hardware list.]
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Commercial passenger connectivity "is here to stay". And while L-Band aeronautical services are "clearly in the lead", Ku-band broadband "is setting blistering pace for units and revenues".

So says Northern Sky Research in its latest satellite market report, which estimates that the global MSS aeronautical segment (covering commercial, general, and military aircraft) will generate over $2.6 billion in total retail revenues from 2010 to 2020.

Well, cha-bloody-ching. It's clear SOMEBODY is making money from in-flight connectivity (sat boys, for one).

However, we are all aware that connectivity is still a cost centre for numerous parties, including airlines, though it is increasingly becoming the cost of doing business for major carriers. Hell, no-one has "ever" made money in this business, I'm told by multiple parties all the time, including, ironically (or truthfully?), one firm that has its fingers in the business of connectivity.

I wonder if we'll be able to make the same sweeping generalization in a few years, however. Perhaps it would be better to be a company that sells connectivity hardware rather than a service provider with revenue dependent on usage levels to cover the cost of the service. And, if connectivity is going to be a business for hardware sellers/IFE providers, then it would seem that the likes of EMS, Panasonic, Thales, Qest, TECOM, Rockwell Collins and others are sitting pretty, as airlines all over the world look to bring connectivity systems aboard their aircraft.

But what about the connectivity service providers - the Gogos, Row 44s, OnAirs of this world?

Last year Gogo said it was increasingly confident that an initial public offering (IPO) of shares was in its future. And it's not hard to imagine Row 44 working towards a similar goal (though I still wonder if Southwest Airlines might ultimately step in as acquirer). Equally, it isn't out of the question that Gogo and Row 44 might be looking for buyers.

While OnAir has won A LOT of business with airlines (underline, underline), it has not yet broken into the US market like rival Panasonic has just done with the United-Continental deal.

Might OnAir consider some form of merger or acquisition to gain a foothold in the US? Oh, don't mind me. You know I love a little intrigue and speculation. But I'll never forget walking in on a consultation between Row 44 and former OnAir chief Benoit Debains at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg a couple years back. DeBains later admitted that the Airbus/SITA joint venture was open to partnerships with Ku providers, such as Row 44. Of course, that was before Imarsat announced its plan to offer a superfast Ka-band connectivity service from 2014.

Meanwhile, it seems that Row 44's prediction to me at APEX that some 200 Southwest 737s will be fitted with the connectivity system by year-end was a little on the rosy side. Southwest tells me that 105 737-700s are fitted with the system - less than one fifth of its fleet - and it estimates the figure "will be well over 100" by year-end. Southwest still maintains that its entire fleet will be equipped by early 2013.
 
Asked about the seemingly slow pace of installs, Southwest said: "We have a number of maintenance schedules to keep up with and Wi-Fi is just one of them. It's more the schedule of maintenance than a specific Row 44 issue."

And who is covering the cost of installs? Southwest says it doesn't divulge details of it's agreement with Row 44. But you can be sure that SOMEBODY is paying for the hardware, which means SOMEBODY is making money from connectivity. Sorry, I don't mean to yell. :-)

UPDATED to include the following comment from an industry source (which, in short, means the cost to airlines is far less). "The real cost for airlines is a lot different - unsurprisingly since a) there is no existing revenue to undermine and b) the volumes are drastically different. The current offer to key airlines (like Singapore) is to match the price of Ku with SBB if they commit to staying with Inmarsat through the transition to GX. That means an effective price of $0.20-$0.30 per Mbyte, not multiple dollars per Mbyte. Not clear how they will price for cellular services, but the key is to make a data-only service available at a realistic flat rate."

Inmarsat has not confirmed these figures.
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ORIGINAL BLOG:

I haven't even called Inmarsat exec Lars Ringertz about this blog and I can already hear him telling me: "Mary, those are not the prices that Inmarsat charges its partners. We don't control our partners' pricing." Except Lars would say it more eloquently than that, and with that lovely accent of his. 

Of course, Lars - or the Lars in my head - is right. But it's also true to say that the new pricing we're seeing for SwiftBroadband-supported in-flight connectivity services are reflective of Inmarsat's decision to dramatically reduce the cost of SwiftBroadband.

The result is that Wi-Fi via SwiftBroadband, whether for commercial or corporate aircraft, is becoming more attractive to some operators. OnAir, the Airbus/SITA joint venture, is far and away the leader in this space, with a customer list for SwiftBroadband-based connectivity that includes Emirates, Singapore Airlines, TAM and many others.

Panasonic's partner AeroMobile offers some SwiftBroadband-supported solutions, although it is now focused on offering mobile connectivity via Ku (while Panasonic offers Internet via Ku).

Finally, ARINC has brought a SwiftBroadband-based Wi-Fi offering to market, and has been talking to Panasonic about potential pairings (think Panasonic IFE with ARINC Wi-Fi).

So, with all that said, I invite you to watch the following video, 'Pricing for Swiftbroadband connectivity revealed'. The figures quoted pertain to corporate aviators, most particularly the Satcom Direct service that will be provided Honeywell on its Dassault Falcon 900EX, but you get the picture.