LONG BEACH — Thai Airways International and Turkish Airlines are the latest carriers to sign on for Airbus’ linefit, supplier-furnished Airspace Link HBCplus Ka-band satellite-supported broadband inflight connectivity, bringing the total number of HBCplus customers to 13, Airbus revealed during a media briefing at the APEX Global EXPO.
Bangkok-based Thai Airways has opted to equip 12 new A321LRs with the Ka-band IFC system, with deliveries slated for the fourth quarter of 2025. Turkish Airlines, meanwhile, will equip 14 new A350 family aircraft.
Both carriers have chosen SES’s multi-orbit MEO/GEO satcom service from Airbus’ Ka-band managed service provider (MSP) catalogue. The service, revealed Airbus, will be delivered by SES along with one of its key ‘Open Orbits’ partners, Neo Space Group (NSG), a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The HBCplus program is disruptive and groundbreaking in that it uncouples the inflight connectivity hardware from the connectivity service and enables airlines to switch MSPs without changing the hardware.
On the Ka-band side of the program, Safran Passenger Innovations provides a terminal to Airbus that is based on ThinKom Solutions’ popular Ka2517 VICTS antenna. And Airbus effectively offers the certified terminal and radome package as part of the aircraft.
Airlines can choose from a Ka-band MSP catalogue that currently includes Viasat (with its Global Xpress network), SES with its hybrid MEO/GEO offering, and soon Hughes Network Systems, which has a standing MOU with the airframer.
Telesat and its forthcoming Lightspeed Ka-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) network is also in line to participate under a new memorandum of understanding with Airbus, announced at the show. Under the MOU, Airbus and Telesat have committed to “explore enabling HBCplus MSPs’ own services to also harness” Telesat’s Lightspeed coverage — complementing GEO and MEO connectivity on the same Ka-band equipped aircraft, said Airbus. Telesat management clarified to RGN that it will deliver the service to airlines via its partners.
On the Ku-band side of the HBCplus program, Airbus has thus far selected Panasonic Avionics and Intelsat as multi-orbit MSPs, using capacity from their respective GEO satellite networks and the Eutelsat OneWeb LEO network. In this instance, the terminal that Safran is providing to Airbus will be based on Thales/Get SAT’s dual-beam electronically steered antenna. Airbus is still targeting 2026 for delivering aircraft linefit with the Ku-band system, management told RGN today.
“The demand for high speed and seamless — and that’s important — Internet access onboard is dramatically increasing. Every airline wants to offer that, every passenger is expecting it onboard and we see really the outfitting rate and the take-up rate of connectivity quickly picking up, not just on linefit but also the retrofit market is working very quickly,” said Airbus head of connected aircraft Tim Sommer.
He added that this robust IFC equipage “is linked of course to an overall digitalization trend in the industry where more and more customers are seeing the value which connectivity and data can bring in terms of passenger experience but also importantly in terms of optimizing the efficiency of the operations of the aircraft. And that’s also where we believe we as Airbus can provide value, working with our customers and working with our partners on the passenger experience but also on the aircraft operations.”
To date, Airbus has secured Ka-band HBCplus orders across four aircraft families: the A320, A330, A350 and A380. In addition to Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines, the airframer counts Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Air India, Air Algerie and Philippine Airlines as HBCplus linefit customers. And Emirates is retrofitting the kit to Airbus A380s.
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