Flat Panel Antennas Put Volume Back on the Menu in IFC

The introduction of low profile and discrete antenna design has sparked in-flight connectivity (IFC) adoption after years of relatively limited growth. Data from the Valour Consultancy quarterly IFC tracker shows more than 1,500 systems were installed annually between 2017 and 2019 (adding more than 4,500 aircraft to the IFC installed base), as carriers rolled out Ku- or Ka-band satcom services in an effort to disrupt or keep up.

One could consider this to be the good old days for the industry. However, sales teams at major IFC service providers were finding it harder to build on the momentum being generated as the low hanging fruit was removed from the addressable market. The primary indicator of this problem was the IFC backlog (orange line on the chart below), which was not being replenished at a fast enough rate versus installation activity and in 2017 began to decline from a peak of almost 6,000 aircraft.

COVID-19 only accelerated the rate of this decline, which culminated in the IFC backlog figure threatening to fall below 3,000, despite a sharp fall in annual gross IFC installations to approximately 600 per year between 2020 and 2022 (a decline of more than 60 percent against the peak observed in 2018).

Revisiting the theme of the good old days, what the industry had been missing in the years since 2018’s peak was the major wins involving large quantities of aircraft. Despite my positive sentiment toward the opportunity in emerging markets like China and India, we’re yet to see carriers in either market deploy IFC on massive domestic fleets. Similarly, major LCC’s in Asia and Europe such as EasyJet, Lion Group, RyanAir or WizzAir remain seemingly steadfast in the view IFC doesn’t yet offer the ancillary revenue generation to offset the associated cost.

In North America, large sub-fleets of narrow-body and wide-body aircraft operated by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Southwest, and United Airlines already possess satellite-based connectivity.

Thankfully, 2023 saw the end of the COVID-era and a fresh wave of IFC-related activity, with North America’s extensive fleet of regional jets taking center stage. The development of discrete antenna technology instigated this change. This technology is better suited to accommodating the relatively small real estate on regional jet variants, notably CRJ and E-Jet family aircraft.

At the time of writing, an estimated 34 percent of all regional jets are equipped with in-flight Wi-Fi; the vast majority of which (1,400) possess aging Air-To-Ground technology. The introduction of discrete IFC hardware, such as the Sidewinder ESA from Stellar Blu, Starlink’s electronically steered antennas (ESA) and Thinkom’s Ka1717, can help airlines align the onboard experience of regional jets to that of larger aircraft in the fleet, which is why we’re now seeing such interest and action from airlines.

Alaska Airlines was the first to make the move toward upgrading its regional jets in January 2023, opting to go with the Sidewinder ESA from Stellar Blu Solutions and Intelsat on 80 E170 aircraft operated on its behalf by both Horizon Air and SkyWest Airlines. In November 2023, Delta Air Lines selected IFC from Hughes Network Systems, and will install the Thinkom Ka1717 antenna on 400 aircraft, including more than 300 regional jets made up of E170 series E-Jets and CRJ700/900s. In the same month, American Airlines announced it had selected to upgrade IFC on 500 regional jets with the introduction of the Sidewinder antenna, unlocking multi-orbit services with Intelsat and OneWeb. Air New Zealand, meanwhile, intends to install Starlink technology across its domestic fleet, including regional jets.

In 2023, the gross IFC backlog figure rebounded (highlighted in chart above), despite the significant uplift in annual gross installations, driven primarily by Viasat’s Ka-band technology on Delta Air Lines – the notable outlier to emerge in the last three to five years. According to our IFC tracker, flat panel antenna technology (including the low profile Thinkom VICTS range of antennas) now accounts for approximately 50 percent of the 4,000 aircraft now awaiting installation of new IFC hardware. In the coming months and years, ESAs are expected to push this figure even higher, with major players such as Intelsat, Hughes, Panasonic Avionics, and Starlink adopting low profile and discrete satcom-based technology to power next generation services. Stakeholders should be buoyed by this advancement and the bounty of regional jets and narrow-body aircraft it unlocks. VS

Daniel Welch is a co-founder & senior research consultant at Valour Consultancy