Please enjoy this Op-Ed contribution from Darin Anderson, who serves as Director of Sales for Commercial Inflight Connectivity at ThinKom Solutions

What happens when the cost of a key service changes significantly?

Private jet operators faced that question when Starlink increased its business aviation pricing earlier this year. For airlines, the example illustrates a broader consideration: connectivity costs and service needs will change during the working life of an aircraft. Preserving the ability to respond can help airlines manage costs while considering reliability, coverage and performance.

Starlink’s pricing change was not the first pivot it has made. Its contract-free approach offers flexibility, but it also means customers need to consider how changes to commercial terms could affect them. The same principle applies to any connectivity arrangement. Making decisions that accommodate today’s needs while preserving future options is sound business practice.

Flexibility Tops Competing Priorities

Integrated hardware and service offerings have advantages. They can simplify procurement and support while giving airlines a single point of accountability. But it also makes changing service providers expensive and difficult. Replacing installed equipment across a fleet is a significant capital expenditure, plus adverse impacts to aircraft availability and maintenance schedules. Airlines should weigh these potential costs alongside the benefits of an integrated offering.

Deploying solutions with built-in flexibility and future compatibility can help airlines manage these considerations. Network-agnostic hardware gives airlines more options. An antenna capable of working with multiple satellite networks, including networks in different orbits, gives an airline greater freedom to consider alternative capacity as its needs change.

That flexibility depends on the full system, not the antenna alone. Modems, software, certification, and commercial arrangements all affect which networks an airline can use. Choosing hardware compatible with multiple service providers at the outset makes it easier to access new capacity later without replacing the installed terminal.

A Growing Industry Trend

ThinKom is not alone in emphasizing the value of choice. Earlier this year, then VP of global airline partnerships at SES, Enrique Villasenor, spoke about the long-term implications of choosing supplier-specific hardware, noting it akin to “handing over the keys, frankly, to the future” of their fleet.

A trusted supplier can be an excellent partner. Airlines still benefit from understanding which decisions about their customer-facing service will remain in their hands over the life of the aircraft.

Supplier choice is only part of the calculation. Airlines choosing a multi-orbit, multi-constellation solution may also gain access to network redundancy and the flexibility to match capacity to their routes and service requirements. Geosynchronous satellites offer substantial capacity and can be competitively priced alongside Low Earth Orbit constellations, and airlines should be able to assess which network delivers the quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) they need for passengers and operational data.

Regulatory limitations also matter. Where access to a particular network is restricted, an airline may be able to use an alternative, provided coverage, approvals and commercial arrangements are in place. Some countries and airlines also place particular value on data sovereignty, influencing how inflight internet traffic is routed and which service providers can operate in their airspace.

These technical, regulatory, and commercial needs demand flexibility. 

A network-agnostic terminal, supported by appropriate routing software and service agreements, can give airlines more ways to address them. For our part, ThinKom’s terminal architecture enables these features, supporting support network orchestration via software and multi-modem ModMan hardware to ensure access to disparate constellations via a single platform.

Operating Today, and into the Future

The Seamless Air Alliance’s work on 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks offers another example of the industry’s interest in interoperability. Its working group is exploring how a common approach could allow aircraft to use satellite networks in different orbits while maintaining service continuity.

If successful, that could give airlines access to a wider range of providers without requiring a separate set of onboard equipment for each network. Greater interoperability could, in turn, support competition among satellite operators and give airlines more choice as their needs change.

ThinKom is a member of the Seamless Air Alliance and plans to contribute its ThinAir® Ka2517 terminal to the second phase of the SAA’s 5G NTN demonstrator. The first phase, planned for November 2026, will assess LEO and GEO connectivity and handover in a lab.

A flight-ready lab demonstration is planned for 2027, followed by an inflight demonstration in the first half of 2028. There is still work to do before this approach can be proven in flight, but the collaboration shows that preserving choice is a shared industry objective.

Winning with Flexibility

As economist Milton Friedman put it, “The great danger to the consumer is monopoly — whether private or governmental. His most effective protection is free competition at home and free trade throughout the world.” In business, the presence of credible alternatives gives customers more scope to negotiate and gives suppliers a reason to keep improving what they offer.

That is why interoperability matters. Encouraging networks to compete on coverage, performance and commercial terms allows airlines to respond as routes, passenger expectations, and technology change. For an aircraft expected to serve a long life in this increasingly dynamic global market, preserving access to that competition is a practical way to protect a connectivity investment.

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