Viasat has slightly increased its 2025 fiscal year revenue outlook and says it expects to have 4,200 aircraft in service by the end of the 12-month period, despite ongoing aircraft delays at major airframers.

During a conference call to report its 2025 fiscal first quarter earnings, Viasat chairman and CEO Mark Dankberg noted that the OEM delays are not new, but cited “a few issues on 737s” as well as continued “engine issues associated with Airbus planes” and some widebody delays.

“[T]hey’re not getting worse but they’re persisting,” he said.

Longtime Viasat customer JetBlue, for instance, is among the carriers grappling with a Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan (GTF) problem that is affecting some Airbus narrowbodies. Though Dankberg did not explicitly mention JetBlue on the call, the carrier expects aircraft on the ground (AOG) to significantly increase in 2025 and is deferring delivery of 44 Airbus A321neos to 2030 and beyond. This has in turn reduced JetBlue’s 2025 to 2029 planned capital expenditures by about $3 billion.

Despite OEM delays, and engine issues affecting AOG, Viasat’s fiscal first quarter results yielded stronger than expected revenue of $1.1 billion, a 44% increase year-over-year driven by the contribution from its acquisition of Inmarsat. Management pointed to the firm’s “competitive strength” in both defense and aviation and revealed that Viasat for the quarter:

Realized mid-teens growth YoY in the number of both commercial and business aviation aircraft in service; not reflected in contracted backlog of 1,460 aircraft are 350 additional aircraft in the contract process

By 30 June, the end of Viasat’s 2025 fiscal first quarter, the firm had 3,800 commercial aircraft fitted with its Ka-band satellite-supported broadband inflight connectivity solutions (inclusive of Viasat-formerly-Inmarsat Global Xpress-equipped tails.) It counted 1,900 fitted aircraft in business aviation.

“[W]e still have our target of 4,200 aircraft in service at the end of FY25,” Dankberg said on the call in reference to commercial aviation.

In the United States, Viasat counts a bevy of airlines as customers of its high-capacity Ka-band IFC system, including heavy-hitters American, Delta, Southwest and United. Its hybrid S-band satellite/air-to-ground (ATG) European Aviation Network offering, delivered in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, powers Internet on hundreds of tails in Europe including at British Airways. Lufthansa Group plans to fit over 150 narrowbodies with EAN. Customers of Viasat’s Ka-band GX solution (formerly Inmarsat GX) include Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines, among others.

US operators were looking forward to the additional capacity provided by the new ViaSat-3 F1 Americas satellite, but as previously reported, an antenna deployment anomaly has reduced capacity to roughly 10%. Viasat may need to make investments in ground equipment to get to that level, Dankberg admitted on the call. The F1 capacity is currently being focused on Viasat’s prior gap in coverage, routes servicing Hawaii.

The remaining two satellites in the ViaSat-3 constellation are likely to be positioned over the Americas and Asia-Pacific. In time, the impaired F1 satellite is expected to end up over EMEA, the Middle East/Africa region, noted Dankberg.

During the 2025 fiscal first quarter, Viasat narrowed its net loss to $33 million from $77 million in the year-earlier quarter which it explained as being “primarily due to improved operating performance, partially offset by higher interest expense and reduced tax benefit”.

The Carlsbad, California-based company said it’s “raising the low end of our FY2025 revenue and Adjusted EBITDA outlook and maintaining our view for FY2026.”

But it added, “while we are getting positive operating leverage, we are remaining prudent with guidance given uncertainties with delayed OEM commercial aircraft deliveries.”

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Featured image credited to Viasat