French sister airlines Air Caraïbes and French bee have agreed to sell Skyted’s silent call technology, the Skyted 320 headset, on board.
The headset will be available for pre-order in French bee’s new duty-free shop from 1 June, and sold on both long-haul carriers’ aircraft from 1 July.
“Through our new duty-free offering, we aim to provide our passengers with unique and differentiated products. The Skyted headset perfectly aligns with the group’s innovation strategy and our commitment to onboard comfort,” Air Caraïbes and French bee inflight customer experience director Daphné Tournadre said in a statement.
Will passengers be able to use the headset to make calls in flight?
“Passengers can now enjoy silent and confidential calls from their seat — in lounge and aircraft without any impact on cabin quietness,” declared Skyted CEO Stéphane Hersen in announcing the new arrangement with Air Caraïbes and French bee on LinkedIn.
“With Air Caraïbes and French bee, we are giving passengers the ability to communicate during flights without imposing their conversations on nearby travelers, a new way to respect everyone’s onboard experience,” he said in a formal press release.
There may be some stipulations, however. The hardware is capable of facilitating virtually silent VoIP and video calls but Skyted’s statement notes that the tech “helps travelers use their voice more discreetly wherever privacy matters, whether they are dictating a message, sending a voice note, coordinating on the move, interacting with an AI assistant or taking a call when conditions allow.”
Inflight connectivity on both carriers is powered by Viasat-formerly-Inmarsat’s Global Xpress Ka-band geostationary satellite service (an offering initially supported by SITAONAIR). The broadband pipe is technically capable of supporting VoIP and video calls.
But on a French bee flight last October between Paris Orly and Newark, RGN contributor Jason Rabinowitz discovered that the Wi-Fi service was rationed by the low-cost carrier in packages measured by megabytes, and those MBs got eaten up fast.
Springing for the lowest-end $4 package, he said his 25 MB were gone after managing to only send a message or two. French bee’s own inflight portal indicated that a mere one minute of video streaming would consume 17 MB.
Air Caraïbes’ website currently suggests that MB packages for Wi-Fi, at least on its Airbus widebodies, are still in play. French bee’s website, however, is now advertising new tiers, including an Addicted Pack on its Airbus A350s, specifically. The package costs $29 and offers unlimited Internet access for the entire duration of the flight, notably with video and music streaming excluded.
Given these factors, it’s probably safe to suggest that neither carrier expects that a plane load of people will seek to make lengthy voice calls, silent or otherwise, in flight.
But should passengers be keen to do so when conditions allow, Skyted 320 is specifically designed to ensure they can communicate without disturbing nearby travelers.
The technology works. Last year, RGN got the opportunity to try out the Skyted 320 headset at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg and found it to be quite impressive. Using the headset on a call with Hersen, contributor Fintan Horan-Stear’s recording app could not pick up any sound at all.
Comprising a headset and microphone, and utilizing Skyted’s ‘Sound Bubble’ patent, Skyted 320 captures voice at its source and limits its diffusion in noisy environments. Image: Fintan Horan-Stear
At this year’s AIX, the solution was demoed on the stand of RAVE Aerospace, which is integrating Skyted’s silent call tech into its RAVE inflight entertainment systems, signaling growing industry interest.
A former Airbus staffer, Hersen founded Skyted in 2021. The French deeptech start-up is supported by Airbus, ONERA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
“For Skyted, this partnership is more than a distribution milestone. It reflects a broader shift in travel experience: voice should remain useful, private and respectful of the people nearby,” Hersen said of the firm’s new relationship with Air Caraïbes and French bee.
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Featured image credited to Jason Rabinowitz
