Already powering inflight connectivity for 30 airlines, SES is now exploring how it can extend its services to the airport ramp by providing comms on the move solutions to operators.
“It’s not just passengers,” who require connectivity, SES vice president, airline partnerships James Blackwell told Runway Girl Network this week at the firm’s McLean, Virginia offices. “Connectivity helps in a lot of different ways. It helps with cargo. It helps with airport operations.”
And so, if you look beyond airlines’ aircraft fleets, he said, “if you look at them broader, you have this many luggage bins, you have this many tugs — everything in your ecosystem that matches with the broader SES landscape. So, we have a land mobility space that could work with an airline as well.”
Autonomous cargo and baggage tractors are increasingly being pressed into service as part of airline trials around the world. And earlier this year, Flightradar24 revealed that Stockholm Arlanda Airport is integrating autonomous snow plows into its fleet.
Are connected autonomous vehicles on the ramp part of SES’s vision, RGN asked?
“Exactly,” Blackwell said.
Before he joined SES in June 2024, Blackwell served as director of business development at design firm Teague, where he worked on digital twins and akin. “So that concept hasn’t been taken on in our space yet. I think Miami airport (MIA) was looking at it,” Blackwell noted.
Indeed it has. MIA is part of Future Travel Experience’s Smart Ramp collaborative which is focused on accelerating autonomous ramp operations. And earlier this year, the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and Honda hosted a live demonstration at Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport to showcase Honda’s prototype autonomous work vehicles and work mowers mowing grass and spraying pesticide at the 960-acre airport.
Adding robust connectivity to autonomous vehicles brings advanced features and enhanced safety.
“Now we’re talking with some of these airlines about maybe implementing some things like that,” Blackwell revealed to RGN of the land mobility opportunities being explored by the satellite operator and aero ISP. “It creates a wealth of opportunities.”
SES certainly has a cadre of comms tools and satellite assets to draw from, including its O3b mPOWER Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite network.
To support its customers in the government segment, for instance, SES already provides a ‘Sovereign COTM mPOWERED’ service that “delivers a private fibre-like mobile broadband experience to command posts and tactical vehicles — both on the move and on the pause.”
Additionally, the Luxembourg-based firm’s recent acquisition of Intelsat includes a portfolio of land mobility solutions, including FlexMove LEO, which operates via the Eutelsat OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) network.
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